


The Man With the Metal Arm

by bear_bell



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Brainwashing, Corporate Intrigue, Drama, Howard Stark's C+ Parenting, Implied Non-Con, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racism, Romance, Slash, Underage Drinking, and because Tiberius Stone is a dick, because he's not good but not bad either, because hydra, deprograming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:17:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3450215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bear_bell/pseuds/bear_bell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Tony woke up, there was a strange man standing over his bed, staring down at him with a knife in his hand.</p><p>Tony said, "Cool arm," instead of screaming like he wanted to.</p><p>When Hydra sent the Winter Soldier to kill Howard and Maria Stark, they sent him to kill Tony, as well. Which was stupid of them. Because what better revenge than to live, and live using their tech?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There's an Assassin Under My Bed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony steals an assassin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is hard core A/U. I've messed up the timeline in every way feasibly possible, and I use a few characters from the comic verse (Tiberius Stone and Edwin Jarvis, to be specific. Stone doesn't get much face time, and I tried to write Jarvis like JARVIS).
> 
> Story begins when Tony is 17 and in his last year at MIT. There are mentions of underage sex and drinking, but nothing too graphic. More innuendo than anything else. Just giving you a heads up. Tags will be added as the story progresses. Also, the story is unbetaed. I'll fix errors as I find them, and I would appreciate it if you pointed out any errors you notice (especially plot discrepancies). 
> 
> Anyways, happy reading!

When Tony woke up, there was a strange man standing over his bed, staring down at him with a knife in his hand.

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened. It wasn't even the second.

 _Stark men are made of iron_ , was the first thing he remembered, which was a stupid thing for his father to say so often, because iron was an inferior metal.

 _Be calm_ , was the second thing he remembered. During their lessons (drills), Mr. Smith (not his real name, btw), had told Tony time and time again that the most important thing he could do when someone was trying to attack him or kidnap him was to be calm. Always, always be calm. Show no fear, no panic, no anger, and never, ever, ever, show uncertainty. And Tony decided that if he survived this night, he'd give Mr. Smith a million dollars. Or a blow job (because Ty said he needed the practice).

So Tony said, “Cool arm,” instead of screaming like he wanted to.

Tony hadn't realized that the man was moving to slit his throat until the knife abruptly stopped a hair's breath away from his jugular.

“What is that, titanium?” Tony continued, painfully aware of his vulnerable position on his back, as well as the fact that the man was twice his size and probably four times as strong (because yeah, Tony was pretty fit for his age and size from all of his time spent working in his workshop, but this guy was _ripped_ ). “Good metal. Well, good enough, I suppose. A carbon alloy would be better. With a bit of graphite, maybe? And the design isn't nearly as efficient as it could be. Let me take a look at it, and I could fix it up for you,” Tony offered. Because Mr. Smith told him that the second most important thing he could do in an attack or hostage situation was to figure out what the attacker wants, or _something_ that they wanted, in order to gain leverage or control of the situation. And while Tony knew that in this particular situation, the attacker wanted to kill him, Tony hoped that the guy wanted a nice new arm more.

Before the man could reply (could he even speak through that mask?), the door to Tony's dorm room began to open on squeaky hinges. Faster than Tony's eyes could follow, the man with the metal arm (and the knife, Tony belatedly thought) had disappeared beneath Tony's bed and out of sight. The room's light quickly flickered on, and after Tony was finished blinking in the sudden light, he was shocked to see the form of Obadiah Stane standing tall in the doorway.

“Obi?” Tony asked as he sat up, rubbing at his eyes. Because sure, the man visited Tony at MIT more often than either of Tony's parents combined, but he never appeared unannounced, and never in the middle of the night.

In response, Obadiah said, “Get up, Tony,” his expression stern and grave. _Tony_ , he'd said, not _Tones_. “There's been an accident. We need to get to the hospital.”

As Tony rushed to pull on some shoes and a coat (he didn't even think of grabbing pants to pull on over his boxers, which he would regret once stepping foot out of the dorm and into the chilly New England night), he didn't tell Obi that there was an assassin hiding under his bed. Although, in hind sight, he should have.

A car accident, they said. His parents had been on their way home from a party, and his father had been driving drunk. Which was possible. Except, his father never attended functions without a driver (the man liked to rub his status in people's faces in any underhanded way he could, even if half of the other people at the function also had drivers). And Tony's mother never drank in public. Only in private. She wouldn't have let Howard drive drunk. Which meant something had happened to make Tony's father get behind the wheel of a car. And again, just to reiterate, there was an assassin hiding under Tony's bed when he left his dorm, and that fact didn't exactly add any credence to the whole _accident_ thing.

By the time Tony and Obi reached the hospital, his parents had already been pronounced dead.

* * *

The second time Tony saw the man with the metal arm (sans knife this time) was at a party.

Ty had woken him up at 9:00 (in the evening. Tony wasn't usually in bed before 3:00 in the morning, but he hadn't slept in three days, and upon arriving back at his doom just after 7:00, he had crashed. Which was why he was pissed at Ty. Two measly hours of sleep after three days without did not a happy Tony make). The 21-year-old had then proceeded to drag Tony to the first wild frat party they could find, which happened to be in the Harvard dorms just a few minutes drive from the MIT campus, citing that Tony needed to unwind.

What Tony really needed was sleep and a good, long cry. But Ty was a sociopath, or at least that's what Rhodey said, so the guy didn't understand the concept of mourning, and he needed Tony at the party to make him look good. Because Tony was probably the only person on the entire East Coast capable of distracting people from Ty's poor social skills.

So Tony went to the party (but only because Ty promised to do all of the school work Tony had missed while attending the funeral and helping Obi sort out Stark Industries), and after spending an hour or so being a dick to anyone who even mentioned his parents (and he really was a dick, considering the fact that most of the people who brought his parents up were trying to offer their condolences), Tony snuck out to the pool behind the frat house.

The pool itself was empty and covered by a tarp, and the patio was dark, so Tony was alone. The alone part was key, because he'd stolen a bottle of cheep vodka from the kitchen, and even though he was at a frat party, it was a Harvard frat party, and these people weren't stupid enough to be caught serving alcohol to an underage Tony Stark. And Tony didn't want to be kicked out of the party until after he'd gotten drunk off his ass and had a good bit of grief sex.

The pool area was dark, but Tony easily recognized the tall, looming shadow of the assassin, and as the man approached, he saw light from the kitchen windows reflecting off of the shiny metal of his arm. As the man moved closer and came more into the light, Tony saw the dull red star painted onto the upper bicep of the metal arm and immediately knew what the symbol meant.

“Russian, huh?” Tony asked as the man stopped to stand a few feet away from him.

Tony looked into the round, dark lenses of the man's mask and barely kept himself from showing his discomfort at the blank, emotionless stare that the mask portrayed.

“You have good timing, Darth. A little latter and there wouldn't be any vodka left for you,” Tony said, vaguely waving the almost empty bottle towards the man.

“You said my arm was inefficient,” the man said, completely ignoring Tony's half-drunken attempts at banter.

Tony hated being ignored.

And he hadn't said the arm was _inefficient_. He'd said he could make the arm _more_ efficient.

Tony hated when people misquoted him. Why did he bother talking if people didn't listen to what he had to say?

Usually, the whole being ignored and being misquoted thing would make Tony instantly combative. But he figured that just because he couldn't see the knife didn't mean it wasn't there, so he literally swallowed down the word vomit trying to crawl its way out of his esophagus.

“Sure,” he finally said. “And I can fix it up for ya. You, uh... having problems with it or something?”

“Yes,” the man stated. “The arm is making me remember. In order to maintain maximum efficiency, it needs to stop.”

Um.

“Right,” Tony said slowly. “Do you, uh, know how that works?”

“No,” the man stated. “The subject doesn’t need to understand in order to remain functional.”

O...kay.

Tony took a long, deep swig from the bottle of vodka before offering it to the man (and Tony was beginning to wonder, was the guy a man at all?). The man took the bottle, but didn't seem to know what to do with it after his flesh hand was wrapped around the bottle's neck.

“This will not improve the arm's efficiency,” the man told him.

“No, but it will help you relax,” Tony insisted.

“Subject's efficiency decreases by .5% with every 100 ounces of alcohol consumed,” the man stated.

“One hundred ounces?” Tony repeated. “That's like... Twelve and a half cups. Is that of, like, beer? Because this is 80 proof, and vodka, and... Are you talking about pure alcohol?”

“Yes.”

“Dude, that's... I'm pretty sure drinking that much alcohol kills people.”

When the man responded to this statement by doing and saying absolutely nothing, Tony grabbed the vodka back and took another long drink. “Forget sex,” he said to himself. “Let's go do science.”

* * *

“So,” Tony said once they'd broken into one of the advanced medical testing centers on the Harvard campus (and hadn't _that_ been an adventure. Tony could break and enter with the best of them, but the man had done it in a fifth of the time it would have taken Tony, and he had climbed four floors _with Tony clinging to his back_ ). Tony had only had to look at the guy's arm for five minutes before figuring out that the arm was connected to the man's brain, and doing anything with his arm wouldn't be as simple as taking a screwdriver to the thing. Thus, they were running some tests. “Why did you kill my parents?”

It was kind of a stupid question, because his father was one of the greatest weapons developers in the world, and this guy was clearly working for the Soviets, but hey, Tony was fishing for specifics. He doubted this guy had anything personal against his parents, and he was _certain_ he hadn't done anything to the man to warrant a knife to the neck while sleeping, so.

“Who?” the man asked, his eyes avidly trained on one of the medical machines as it printed off lines and lines of diagnostic information. And wasn't it creepy that the man looked just as inhuman without the mask as with it?

“Howard and Maria Stark,” Tony answered slowly, because seriously, the “accident” had happened six days ago.

And the man said, “Mission 9-5 dash Oscar Kilo Sierra dash 3-7-8. Mission erased.” Except, he said it in Russian, which Tony only understood because _If the Soviets take over the world like they want and despite our best efforts, the Starks will survive_.

Tony had heard the guy talk enough, and he'd seen enough of the wiring in the guy's brain to understand that “mission erased” was his way of saying that he didn't remember anything about killing Tony's parents. But at the same time, he was also kind of admitting that yes, it had been him.

Tony sighed, because go figure.

“Look, dude, I'm an engineer, not a doctor,” Tony said while gathering all of the data he'd acquired during their myriad of testing (they'd been in the building for five hours so far). “I don't know what all of this stuff means or how it relates to your arm, but luckily for you I'm a genius. I'd bet half of my stocks in Stark Industries that I'll have this figured out within the month, so...”

He eyed the man, because what he was about to do was really dangerous, and it went against everything that Mr. Smith had ever, _ever_ taught him, and the guy was Russian (or working for the Russians, or controlled by them, or something, because his English was phenomenal, and even thought his diction was mostly perfect, there were brief moments where an _accent_ leaked into his speech patterns. And Tony would bet the other half of his stocks in Stark Industries that it was an accent from _Brooklyn_ ), and he'd been sent to kill Tony, and the mess of wires that Tony could see on some of the scans meant the guy was more robot than man, but... Seriously, Tony was curious, and he lived for science and... and... and honestly, all the aforementioned reasons why this was a bad idea were also the reasons that made this interesting and exciting and...

And this guy had killed his parents on command (by the command of some _Soviet asshole_ ), and what better revenge than to make sure it couldn't happen again? What better revenge than to _live_ , and to live using _their tech_?

“You should stay with me,” Tony declared. “Until we have that arm and your memory issues sorted out. Because I can fix it. I can make it better – more efficient. Right?” Because if Ty had taught Tony anything, it was that he had to take the information he had and use it to make people _do what I want_. And he wanted this (guy from Brooklyn) technology in his hands, and not Russia's.

The man stared at him for several long, slow moments, his eyes narrowing dangerously. Then, the man nodded.

* * *

Tony... hadn't thought this through.

That night when they broke into an Advanced Medical Testing Center on the Harvard campus, Tony thought he had all the information he needed, and he thought he held all the cards. But even though he had somehow tricked the guy into not killing him, he hadn't tricked the guy into trusting him.

When he was six, Mr. Smith and five of his associates had run a week long simulation with Tony on what it would be like to be held captive. They repeated the simulation under varied conditions once a year for longer periods of time until Tony was fourteen, at which point Mr. Smith and several _other_ associates (whom Tony had never met before and who were far better actors than Mr. Smith's other little helpers) had actually stolen Tony from his bed, flown him to an undisclosed location in South America, and had held him there for a month before he finally escaped on his own and managed to get a phone call to his parents.

Living with the assassin was a lot like those simulations. He'd tried to hide the man away in a Boston townhouse on the first day, but that hadn't worked out very well. Tony had dropped the man off at the apartment before classes on Monday. Then, as he was walking to a meeting with his adviser that afternoon, the man had dropped down from a tree, snatched Tony, and hauled ass to Tony's private workshop on the far side of the campus. He did all of this in broad daylight while thousands of students were traveling between classes, and _no one had seen anything_. Apparently, the man had spent a grand total of two minuets alone in the apartment before some extreme paranoia had kicked in, and he had convinced himself that Tony had booby-trapped the apartment in an attempt to kill him because Tony didn't want to uphold his promise to fix the guy's arm. What followed was two days of Tony trapped in his workshop while the man threatened him and argued with Tony about his progress on his research of the man's arm.

Thus, the guy lived out of Tony's dorm. He slept under Tony's bed, stole food and clothing from Tony's dorm mates, and he followed Tony everywhere. He followed Tony to his classes, to his workshop, to parties, restaurants, meetings with Obadiah, press conferences, everywhere. And no one ever even saw him. At first, Tony didn't, either. But after a few weeks, he started learning the man's tricks, and he figured out where he needed to look in order to catch brief glimpses of the assassin while sitting in class or walking around the campus. Tony had always known the man was strong, and sneaky, but one day he saw the man crawling along the ceiling, using nothing but his own strength to straddle the walls, while people walked directly under him none the wiser.

Tony was used to being watched by people, but it was unsettling how quickly he became used to being _really_ watched by the assassin.

After that first big ordeal where Tony was held in his workshop with a knife to his neck for two days, they worked out a deal where Tony was allowed time to work on his projects for school for most of the day, but he had to make some kind of progress with his research on the man's arm before he could eat or shower or rest at the end of the night. They also came to the understanding that Tony needed to continue behaving normally so that people wouldn't grow suspicious. The assassin was _lucky_ that Tony was well known for disappearing into his workshop for days at a time, otherwise holding him captive there wouldn't have gone so smoothly.

At first, the assassin allowed Tony to keep up the appearance of living a normal, assassin free life. He and Rhodey went to dinner and then to their favorite MIT library to talk shop a couple of nights a week. Ty successfully dragged him out to parties on Friday and Saturday nights. Tony continued to see his friends and have an active sex life, so things were good.

But then, one night, while Tony was putting on his coat and grabbing his bag to go meet Rhodey, the assassin grabbed Tony's arm with his metal hand before Tony could leave his room.

“What's up?” Tony asked when he turned to face the assassin.

The man scowled at him, but Tony had seen the man angry enough times that his overwhelming, threatening demeanor no longer sent Tony into panic attacks (even if the panic attacks were artfully internalized and carefully hidden from the assassin's shrewd scrutiny) every time he saw that scowl. Tony realized that he had become desensitized.

“James Rhodes is not proficient enough of an engineer to be allowed to preform alterations to my arm,” the man informed Tony.

Tony blinked. “Okay, first of all, Rhodey's got some mad skills.”

“He's black,” the man argued, and Tony flinched. The assassin had expressed some racist viewpoints before, but never directly towards Rhodey.

“Second of all,” Tony continued, because no matter how much he wanted to start a fight about the man's opinions on the color of Rhodey's skin, he guy still had Tony's arm in his metal hand, and Tony _needed_ that arm, dammit. “Second of all, I already promised that I would be the only person to touch your arm. Remember? We made that deal while we were holed up in my workshop. Right?”

It took a few moments for the man to remember, but then, slowly, the man nodded.

“Third of all, Rhodey is my friend. We always hang out on Wednesday evenings.”

“Regardless of your sentimental attachment to this man, your first priority is upgrading my arm and fixing my memory. Yes?” the man snarled back at him.

Tony recognized that the man was crossing the line from angry, to dangerous angry. Dangerous angry meant that that any minute now, that stupid fucking knife would appear in the man's flesh hand as if by magic, and the carefully sharpened point (Tony could hear the man sharpening it at night, while Tony laid on top of the bed and the man was lying under it) would be tilted towards one of Tony's major arteries.

So Tony said, “Yeah, yeah, you're right. First priority is you. Got it. No dinner with Rhodey tonight.”

Satisfied, the man nodded and finally released Tony's arm (his skin would be bruised the next day).

Then, on Friday, Ty burst into Tony's room while Tony was sitting on his bed, clipping his fingernails (he had to keep them short, because it was nearly impossible to clean the oil and grease out from under them after he'd been working in his workshop. Plus, if he kept them long, they often managed to split and crack in very painful ways while he was working). The assassin had already ducked under his bed (Tony had no idea how the man could differentiate between people walking by his door and people walking towards his door, but he never disappeared under the bed unless someone was ten seconds away from barging into Tony's room), and Ty walked in like he owned the place – which he didn't. Tony's grandfather had donated the money to build this particular dorm _ages_ ago.

“Hop to, Stark,” Ty demanded with a smirk that was somehow more arrogant than Tony's own. “Tommy Moore's having a kegger!”

Tony looked up from his nails and opened his mouth to agree (Tommy Moore was always good for a party, because he managed to find the wildest, most depraved people in the city to attend them – people who didn't care that Tony was too young for alcohol or sex), but before the words could leave his mouth, the assassin's metal hand clamped around his ankle like a vice, and Tony found himself saying, “Not tonight, Stone.”

“What's the matter, Stark?” Ty goaded, “Having some problems? Afraid you won't be able to get it up?”

Tony responded with a derisive snort. “The only hard on I'll have tonight is for science. I finally came up with an idea for my thesis project.”

Ty backed off immediately. He may have been an inconsiderate dick in most regards, but if there was anything he understood, it was that science came first, always.

“Next week, then,” Ty said as he strutted out of Tony's room.

Tony nodded his agreement, but as the metal hand around his ankle slackened, he knew he wouldn't be partying for a long, long time.

* * *

One Friday, Tony skipped his afternoon classes in order to work on some projects for Stark Industries. Obadiah had mailed Tony some of his father's incomplete schematics, because there were huge chunks of information missing in order to complete the projects, and what information there was had been written in Howard's infamous shorthand, and the engineers at Stark Industries couldn't make heads or tails of it. The scientists had done their best at filling in the blanks, but if the schematics weren't completed in a timely manner, Stark Industries stood to loose several of its most lucrative government contracts. And after the nosedive SI's stocks had taken after the death of Tony's parents, SI really couldn't afford to loose any business.

Tony was glad for the distraction. Working on the math and building prototypes for the scientists at SI to reverse engineer was easy and soothing. After fuddling through the assassin's technology for a couple of weeks, Tony longed to work on something _simple_ , and after he had spent a few good hours on the projects for SI, Tony felt like his nerves had been somewhat soothed.

While working, he hadn't seen the assassin anywhere in his workshop, but he knew the man was there, watching him, and Tony caught a couple of glimpses of the guy as he was walking back to his dorms that evening.

The assassin had been _following_ him, but still somehow managed to reach Tony's dorm room before him, and the man was lounging on top of Tony's bed when he walked into the room.

The man _almost_ looked non-threatening while wearing stolen jeans and an MIT sweater, with his hair pulled into a pony tail and out of his face. Except that he remained completely expressionless, and he'd torn the left sleeve off of the sweater, so his metal arm was exposed.

"Why do you do that?" Tony asked as he set his bag next to his desk. "Rip the sleeves off of your shirts, I mean."

"Fabric catches in the arm's joints, rips off, and gets caught inside of the subject's arm," the man said, "and movement is reduced by 20%."

"Ouch," Tony mumbled. "So you never hide your arm?"

The man shook his head.

"But what if someone sees you?"

"No one sees me unless I want them to," he stated.

Tony frowned, because he saw the assassin out of the corner of his eye as the man followed him around campus a dozen times a day. Tony wanted to tell the guy that he was a jerk, but he had a feeling that saying as much would result in that knife appearing, so Tony kept his mouth shut.

Seriously, if nothing else, living with the the assassin was a monumental lesson in self control.

* * *

Tony went into engineering (as opposed to medicine, or, like, culinary school or something) because math was strait forward, and machines were easy (even if they were often complex). He dreaded digging up the information he would need to understand the man's body, because humans were messy.

But after reading two (thick) books about the human brain, its parts, and how it worked, Tony was at least interested. He wasn't nearly as put out as he thought he'd be (because synapses? Those were _electrical signals_ sent from one cell to the next, and how fucking cool was _that_?). And after reading those two books, Tony knew enough about memory and the brain, and he recognized enough about the very delicate, very precise placement of a couple of _microchips_ in the man's brain to figure out how memory could be _erased_.

And that was before even mentioning all the other wires and chips and whatever else cluttering the man's brain. Tony guessed that if he were to shave the man's head, his scalp would look like a patchwork quilt. No wonder he talked about himself in the third person and called himself _the subject_ most of the time. Tony had to _teach the guy to eat_. Seriously, his right arm was covered in track marks (which had miraculously disappeared after a month of living with Tony), and the man claimed they were from his _nutrient injections_ when Tony asked about them. And his programming? Tony had to remind the assassin of their deal every twelve hours, almost on the dot, because the man would _forget_. According to him, sometimes Mission 95-OKS-378 was erased, sometimes it was abandoned, and sometimes it was _incomplete_. And Tony could guess what _incomplete_ meant for him. Sadly, waking up to see a man standing over him while holding a knife had become commonplace after only two weeks, and staying calm while internally panicking had become _a thing_.

The worst, though, was when Tony would ask him what his name was (three times is a pattern, so he didn't ask a forth time). The man would turn into a sweating, quivering, angry mess, and he would throw a tantrum, destroying whatever was in hand's reach (the third time Tony asked, he made sure they weren't in the dorm or his workshop, but in the townhouse he'd set up for the man, instead). Then, the man would draw a deep, long breath and coolly state, “The subject does not need a name to function.” Which was terrifying.

Then, besides the circuitry which was the man's brain, there was his blood work, which had tested “inconclusive.” When he'd had a Harvard grad student take a look at the readings, the woman (very attractive, he thought, and uninterested in children, she said) had stared at the results with raised eyebrows for forty seconds before saying, “The samples must have been contaminated.”

 _He must be an alien_ , Tony decided, even though he had piles of proof that the man's physiology was basically human, despite all of his internal (and some external) computer parts.  
On the plus side, Tony's new found knowledge of the human brain and the circuitry which could apparently be installed in it gave him a great idea for his thesis project (and it was about time he came up with something, since he was supposed to be graduating in May. He'd been BSing his advisers and department heads whenever the subject was brought up, and they knew it, too).

So yeah, even though the man had killed his parents, and even though Tony was only alive because he woke up a few seconds before the man could bring down his blade, and even though Tony was kind of being held prisoner in his own dorm room, Tony couldn't say that he regretted meeting the man.

* * *

In December, Tony didn't have anywhere to go, or at least that's what he told people despite receiving invitations to spend Christmas with Rhodey, Ty, and Obi. Therefore, he and the assassin officially moved into the townhouse Tony had purchased for the man back in October. Except, Tony decided that he would be living in the townhouse _after_ break, as well, because hiding a temperamental (forgetful) cyborg assassin in his dorm room was hard. Even if the guy was great at remaining unseen, people still noticed his presence in the dorms. The other students began reporting that food was going missing from the personal refrigerators they kept inside their locked rooms (Tony forgot to feed _himself_ most days; there was a reason the Starks didn't own any pets, and it wasn't because they didn't like animals), clothes mysteriously went missing from the laundry, and objects moved around rooms while people's backs were turned.

Tony found himself disappointed in his dorm mates – they were intelligent people of science for crying out loud! Why in the world were people talking about the dorm being _haunted_?!

The (relative) privacy of the townhouse would also give Tony a chance to actually work on (with, he had to keep reminding himself) the assassin and his ever increasing number of _issues_.

Sure, the assassin was holding Tony prisoner just as much as Tony was bribing him to stay, but the longer Tony spent with the man, the more he recognized that the act of staying rather than completing his primary mission and returning to the USSR went against some base programming that the guy was compelled to follow.

Tony realized that the man was fighting that base programming, because after two months of reminding the man that Mission 95-OKS-378 was _erased_ , Tony knew tell that the guy _was_ fighting, or purposely forgetting, or whatever, and it was only that constant _forgetting_ which was keeping the man from returning to the USSR. And the more the man fought, the more erratic he became. He had started verbally arguing with himself about whether he should stay for the sake of efficiency or leave for the sake of his standing orders, which were to report, on a semi daily basis. The arguments were bizarre, too, because it seriously sounded like the human half of his brain was trying to argue with the electronic half of his brain, and it was kind of physically painful to watch.

Tony soon discovered that he needed to find a way to remove the computer chips from the man's brain. Not all of the chips, of course, because three of them were used to control his arm. But one of them was interfering with the man's memory, and another chip was interfering with his creative capabilities. And Tony said _interfering_ because those two parts of his brain hadn't been damaged or permanently altered in any way. Tony figured that this was because the guy needed some creative capabilities to be efficient at his _job_ , and he needed memory in order to remember what the _job_ even was, or where he was supposed to report to after the _job_ was done.

When Tony explained this to the assassin, he scowled (it was one of the only genuinely human expression Tony ever saw on the guy's face). “You said you would make my arm more efficient,” he said.

Right.

“To do that, I have to remove those two microchips,” Tony said (lied).

“Then do it,” the man demanded.

Tony frowned at the man. It was very frustrating how the man seemed highly intelligent one moment and in the next, it felt like Tony was talking to an idiot. “I told you. I'm an engineer, not a doctor. If I cut into your skull, I'd probably end up killing you.”

For a moment, Tony thought the man was going to pull out his knife or wrap his metal hand around Tony's neck. But then, he said, “Then give me the instructions to complete the procedure. I'll take them back to the Soviet Union and-”

Crap.

“No! Nope! You know what, Ty's family is involved in some pretty shady business. I bet he can point me to some proper doctors who can keep their mouths shut! We're going to the townhouse in two days. I'll get you fixed up then, yeah?”

From the way the man nodded, Tony had the feeling that _he_ was now the one being manipulated.

* * *

Well, Ty proved himself good from _something_ , at least. Two days after Holiday Break began, the basement of Tony's new townhouse was transformed into a makeshift, very illegal operating room, and three highly qualified, very _well paid_ surgeons were prepping the man for surgery.

First, they shaved the man's head (and Tony noted that the assassin's scalp in fact _did not_ look like a patchwork quilt. He didn't have any scaring on his head at all). Then, when the anesthesia didn't initially work at putting the man to sleep, they had to spend quite a bit of time figuring out what dosage of anesthesia he would need. In the end, they had to use ten times the anesthesia they would have used for a normal person, and by the time the surgery actually got underway, they were more concerned that the man would die from the anesthesia than the surgery itself.

It was very unusual, the doctors told Tony. As was the man's blood work. Tony wasn't too worried about the doctors poking around, though. They had signed iron clad gag orders and were given the minimum amount of information required to safely preform the surgery. The surgeons were very professional about the whole thing, and Tony was relieved that his first true crime was going so smoothly.

At least, it went smoothly until the man woke up and began to recover post microchip removal.

With those two microchips gone, the man suddenly regained his humanity, and _it did not go well_.

Tony... had not thought this through.

He figured, yeah, once the microchips were removed, the man wouldn't be such a robot. He'd regain his memory, his free will, and his conscience. But it hadn't occurred to Tony that those were all things which made people, well, _people_. And Tony wasn't good at people. He wasn't good at regular people, and he'd probably be worse at cyborg assassins.

And Tony was very disappointed to learn that while, yeah, a lot of the guy's behaviors were a result of his _programming_ , a lot of that programming was a result of regular, boring, good old fashioned human conditioning.

The paranoia, the hypervigilance, the confusion, none of that went away. If anything, it increased tenfold.

Tony thought the man's pre-surgery cold, emotionless, blank eyes were bad. But the absolute _desolation_ in them now was way worse. And when he wasn't desolate, he was scared, or anxious, or filled with more rage than Tony had ever seen in his life. It took weeks for the man to calm down, to stop running away every couple of hours (Tony had to put a tracking device on the guy to make sure he didn't try going back to the USSR), and to stop screaming at the top of his lungs at random intervals (he was scaring the neighbors, and Tony was beginning to feel like the modern equivalent of Edwin Rochester, hiding the crazy away in the attic. He started playing loud music with screaming lyrics in an attempt to cover his tracks). And at first, the guy never actually spoke. It seemed like he tried speaking, from time to time, but only in the middle of panic attacks, and his mouth never did more than formlessly open and close.

And Tony didn't know what to do. He wasn't good at normal happy emotions, let alone crazy guy assassin emotions. When Tony made the man more human than computer, he lost his tactical advantage of the situation, and now he didn't know what to do.

Luckily, things began to calm down near the end of the holidays. The man finally registered the townhouse as a safe place (after the surgery and in between attempted escapes, he swept the entire place floor to ceiling five times a day looking for bugs or explosive devices or something), and after almost killing Tony three times, he decided that Tony wasn't a threat.

Then, just a few days before the end of break, the man spoke.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he asked quietly from his place beneath Tony's bed, which is where he spent basically all of his time when not inspecting the house for traps or explosives or listening devices.

Tony looked up from his computer, where he was writing some code for his thesis project.

The man was on his stomach, peering out at him from underneath the edge of the bed (it was a double bed which was pushed up against the far wall, and the man usually stuffed himself into the corner furthest away from the open, unprotected sides of the bed). Usually, when the man was looking out from the edge of the bed as he was now, his posture suggested that he was about to spring forward and attack. However, now he had adopted a purposefully relaxed pose, lying on his stomach with his chin propped up on his flesh hand.

This new body language was almost scarier than when he looked like he was about to dart out and start cleaving at Tony's chest with his knife.

Tony played the scared but calm game all the time, and he immediately saw what was really going on. The man didn't remember Tony – he may not remember anything. He was doing the same thing Mr. Smith had trained Tony to do – he was reacting to an attack.

“I'm doing this because you killed my parents and tried to kill me on the order of some Soviet asshole, and because you sometimes have a Brooklyn accent. And because someone was using microchips to control your mind. And because before you started having panic attacks on an hourly basis, you were actually pretty interesting. So... you're talking now?”

“Who are you? Where am I?” he asked, delivering the questions just as calmly as he had the first.

“I'm Tony Stark, and you're in Boston Massachusetts. And hey, while we're exchanging information, do you know who you are?”

The man visibly flinched and said, “Subject does not need a name to function.”

The question yielded better results than pre-microchip removal attempts at getting information from the guy, but Tony was disheartened to learn that removing the microchips wouldn't just make him remember. Plus, he was still referring to himself as _the subject_.

Not cool.

“Crap,” Tony muttered, pushing his chair away from his desk and his computer. He rubbed at his temples as he asked, “So you don't remember anything?”

The man shook his head. “Do you know who I am?”

“Nah. You don't remember how we met?”

Now, the man tilted his head and furrowed his brow (and weren't all of these human emotions on the guy's face just _novel_?). “I... killed your parents?” he asked uncertainly.

Tony nodded. “And then you came to my dorm to kill _me_. But I distracted you, yeah? I told you I could make that metal arm of yours more efficient. And you said the arm was making you remember things, and that you wanted for me to fix it.”

And there it was! Recognition flashed briefly across the man's eyes. “Mission 95-OKS-378,” he muttered in Russian.

“Right! That one! Do you remember who gave you that mission?” Tony asked eagerly.

“Hydra,” the man growled, and Tony's blood ran cold.

* * *

“Hey, man, what happened to you?” Rhodey asked whey they ran ran into each other on the first day of the spring semester. “It's like you dropped off the face of the Earth. Stone called me, because you haven't felt like partying. Tony, _Tiberius Stone_ is worried about you.”

Tony shrugged off the older man's concern. “I've been working on a couple of prettybig things. I'm building an artificial intelligence for my thesis project.”

Rhodey whistled. “You never do anything by halves, do you, Stark?”

Tony grinned, “That I do not. And your adoration of my mad skill has me tickled pink-”

Rhodey gave Tony's shoulder a good punch. “Keep it up and I'll have to put you in your place, kid. Are you going to let me see it?”

“Sure,” Tony allowed. “After I have the body built. I'm still working on the personality programing and learning functions – nothing too complicated for my first try, just some preliminary systems I can build off of later. I'm thinking of eventually making something to install in the mansion so Jarvis can have some help keeping the house organized. Then, maybe I'll put an AI in my workshop, to help with projects, you know?”

Rhodey hummed and nodded as they headed for the coffee shop in the student union, the older man watching Tony with narrowed eyes as the teenager talked about his project. After allowing Tony to ramble for a few minutes about baseline personality components, Rhodey asked, “What else are you working on?”

Tony blinked at the older man. “What?”

“Stone stole a copy of your class schedule from the administrative offices and showed them to me,” Rhodey informed him. “We noticed that you only need three class credits to graduate, but you're talking an additional 18 hours of undergrad classes over at Harvard. Tony, why the hell are you taking psychology classes?”

“Well how am I supposed to make life-like computers if I don't understand humans?” Tony easily replied despite the sudden rapid beating of his heart (Tony had come a long way in perfecting his poker face and bullshiting capabilities since he'd started spending most of his time with a highly trained assassin who often forgot that he _didn't_ want to kill Tony Stark).

“That's... a surprisingly good idea,” Rhodey replied. Except now, he looked suspicious.

“What?!” Tony cried, suddenly offended. “You act like I've never had a good idea before!”

“You have plenty of good ideas, but they're rarely ever thought out or refined,” Rhodey pointed out.

“Story of my life, Rhodey,” Tony sighed. Because really, what part of stealing an assassin from the Soviets and Hydra was thought out or refined? And what part of removing the microchips from said assassin's brain was a good idea (at least, removing them without doing any research to figure out what kind of help the guy would need for rehabilitation)?

So yeah, things were kind of a mess.

* * *

“Did you get a penis enlargement?” was how Ty greeted him when they met outside their adviser's office latter that same afternoon. “Just because it's bigger doesn't mean you'll be any better at using it properly.”

Because of course Ty would be curious as to why Tony had needed the names of grade-A surgeons who would work privately and quietly, and of course he didn't have the sense to keep his curiosity to himself.

“The enlargement wasn't for me,” Tony shot back. With a leer, he told the other teenager, “It was for a friend.”

Ty burst into gleeful laughter, “Someone's already got you acting as their sugar daddy, huh?”

“Fuck off, Stone! It's none of your business!” Tony said hotly. Because if Ty thought he'd figured out Tony's sore spot, he was more likely to leave Tony alone (until the next time they got into a fight, anyways, at which point Ty would use every secret and emotional weakness he knew of to cut Tony down).

And sure enough, at the first sign of Tony's distress, Ty backed off. “Alright, alright. I was just joking around. But I knew something was going on. Your radio silence this past moth was weird. I had to speak to _Rhodes_ , Tony. And you know how much I hate speaking to that common-”

“Yes, Ty, I know,” Tony interrupted before Ty could use any racial slurs against Tony's best friend. Because Tony just had to get through this semester, and if he got into a fight with Ty on the first day back at school, the rest of the term would be one massive battle, and Tony had more important things to worry about than a dick measuring contest with Tiberius Stone.

“As long as you understand,” Ty said smugly. “So there's a party at Christi Hale's place on Friday-”

Tony sighed. Because he really, _really_ wanted to go to a party, get drunk, and have some good old fashioned anonymous sex with a stranger. But, “I can't,” he sighed. “I waited too long to start building my thesis project. I doubt I'll be coming out of my workshop for air too often this semester.”

Because he could not, _could not_ , leave the assassin alone for long periods of time. And Tony didn't trust himself not to get drunk and take strangers to his townhouse for some fun, and no one could know that the man was living with him. Because Hydra, the monsters from his bed-time stories while growing up, apparently existed, and they weren't just some villainous Nazi knockoff group created for the sake of entertainment in comic books and holy crap, what if his father wasn't just a comic book fan, and what if there was _actually_ some shred of truth to all of that Captain America stuff he used to go on about when he had been drinking?!

“So no,” he finished telling Ty.

Ty made a face. “You're a jackass, Stark.”

“Of course I am. Why else would I hang out with you?” Tony shot back.

* * *

The man had his own room and his own bed in the townhouse, but he still refused to sleep anywhere except for under Tony's bed. Which, okay, that's where he had been sleeping since October, so whatever.

For the most part, it was fine. Tony kept highly irregular hours, staying up until three or four in the morning most nights and then sleeping for only three or four hours until getting up the next day. He didn't sleep very deeply, though. Mr. Smith had trained him to wake up at the slightest noise when he was only five or six (which had been a nightmare for Tony while growing up in an old mansion with constantly settling foundations and creaky floorboards). The assassin was quiet, though. The only times he woke Tony were if he decided to sharpen his knife or if he decided to try and kill Tony.

Luckily, the assassin had taken to sharpening his knife during the day, and he didn't think about taking Tony's life half as often as he used to. More and more often, it happened that Tony didn't even notice that the man was even in the room.

That's why when some noise woke Tony one evening and he didn't find an assassin standing over him with a knife, he knew that something was up. The tracking device he wore around his left wrist indicated that the assassin was in fact still in Tony's room, and he didn't see the man moving around the room, so Tony crawled to the edge of his bed and flopped over the side in order to hang upside down and get a good look at the space beneath.

There, he found the man awake and once again sharpening his knife (it had been two weeks since he'd done this while Tony was asleep. Tony hoped it was a sign that the man was starting to like him and act more considerate towards Tony and his sleeping habits).

“That floor looks uncomfortable as fuck,” Tony noticed. And why hadn't he ever noticed that before? “Why don't you sleep in your bed?”

“The mattress is too soft,” the man easily replied. Then, absently, he said, “Hydra didn't give me a bed. Not a real one, anyways, just a cushion on the floor. And during the war, we didn't even have that much. We slept in the dirt most of the time.”

Tony blinked. That was simultaneously the most he had ever heard the other man speak at one time and more information than he'd volunteered in the entire time the two had known each other. “During the war?” Tony asked. “The Vietnam War?” The man had _certainly_ never mentioned anything like that before. And when Tony thought about it, the USSR had supported North Vietnam during the conflict. It could explain how an American got caught up with the Soviet Union and Hydra.

At Tony's question, the man's motions stopped, and he blinked back at Tony. “Huh,” he said. “I _was_ in Vietnam, I think... but no, during the war I was in France and Germany during most of the fighting. Then Russia, then Italy...”

“Are you talking about World War II?” Tony asked blankly. “Dude if you fought in World War II, you'd be, like, fifty-years-old now.”

“Sixty-seven,” the man corrected. “I was born in 1920.”

“No way,” Tony breathed. “How the hell do you only look like you're 25?”

For a few moments, the man was silent and still. Then, he began twitching in a way that Tony knew meant that the man was certainly remembering _something_ , but it was nothing good, and the memories probably weren't making any sense, so he was probably getting frustrated and confused. Tony had watched him go through this so many times that Tony could actually recognize what was happening without actually having to talk to the guy.

“Hey,” Tony said to get the man's attention and pull him out of his own mind. “Let it go,” he demanded, because he was way too tired for this shit right now. “Relax. The fact that you were about to remember anything about yourself is a big deal. Don't rush it. I think it will all come back to you in time, so don't sweat it.”

It took a few moments and some amount of visible effort on the man's part, but eventually he began to calm a little. “Lord,” he muttered, dropping his knife so that he could scrub his hands over his face.

“Look,” Tony said, “I'm starting to get lightheaded hanging over my bed like this, and all of my psycho profs say that talking is one of the best things you can do for this type of stuff. So come up top for a bit, if you want, and you can, I don't know, vent or something.”

After lying under the bed for a few minutes more and calming himself, the man did as Tony suggested, climbing out from under the bed and into it. Carefully, he moved to slide into the bed next to Tony and underneath the covers. For the next two hours, they laid side by side, the cool metal of the man's arm pressed into Tony's side while Tony listened to the man talk, and talk, and talk.

When he was finished, the man let out a great, heaving sigh. “Your psych professors were right,” he told Tony. “Talking helps.”

By the time the man had talked himself out, it was almost six in the morning, and the man got out of bed in order to begin his day.

Tony stayed in bed for a while more, simply staring up at the ceiling. Because talking may have helped the man, but it _had not_ helped Tony.

* * *

The nightmares began after that. The nightmares began for _both_ of them. Because yeah, Tony had always known that there were bad people out there who did bad things (Tony had been hanging out with Tiberius Stone for most of his life, so yeah, _he knew_ ), but the things the man had described as having been done to him, the things he remembered doing, was the stuff of monsters.

One night, Tony woke up when the man crawled into his bed, shaking and sobbing. Tony wasn't in the mood for it, because he had three psych midterms the next day, and he'd been up for the last seventy-two hours compiling the work he'd completed on his AI so far so that he could present it to his advisers at MIT and so that he could just graduate and _be done with it_. However, Tony understood enough of his psychology textbooks, and he'd listened to the man talk often enough to know that whatever he'd dreamt, or remembered, it was bad, and he needed to talk to someone about what was happening inside of his head.

“What's up?” Tony asked. The man was shaking so hard that the entire bed was quivering, and the more alert Tony because, the more uneasy he became.

“I knew him,” the man sobbed.

“Who?” Tony asked.

“Howard. Your father. I knew him. We were – we were friends. He designed the guns I used during the war. My uniform... Lord, he came drinking with us after mission, sometimes. We'd... We'd compete to see who could catch the prettiest girl in the bar. I _knew_ him!”

And didn't _that_ story sound familiar. Hadn't Howard mentioned something like that while telling Tony stories about the war?

Shit. He was so too tired for this.

Awkwardly, Tony patted the man's shoulder. “It's not your fault,” he told the man. “It's not.”

Tony didn't think he had said the right thing, though, because the man didn't stop crying for hours.

* * *

Tony was lucky to make it through his final semester of school. Between the stress of taking 21 hours of classes, creating revolutionary technology for his undergraduate thesis project, and rehabilitating a man who had been kidnapped, tortured, and brainwashed, Tony was a little worn out.

DUM-E was the easiest part of his semester, and the most soothing. Whenever he became frustrated with his psych homework (and again, how could people make the argument that this stuff was science? It was all just so fucking subjective), Tony took solace in the familiar, soothing, comforting weight of a soldering iron in his hand as he built DUM-E's chassis or the rhythmic tapping of computer keys as he wrote DUM-E's code.

Likewise, when he was awoken up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare, or by the man and _his_ nightmares, or his memories, or whatever, Tony usually ended up spending the rest of the night working on DUM-E in order to sooth his frazzled nerves.

It was a relief to finish his courses. It was a relief to be done with school (for now, anyways. He'd give it a year before he went back for his Masters and Ph.D.). And it was a relief to be getting the man out of the city. After three months of being cooped up in the townhouse, the man had started following Tony to his classes again. Tony hadn't minded. He hadn't felt threatened anymore, and honestly, Tony thought the man needed to get out and stretch his legs, so he hadn't discouraged the man's faux stalking.

“You'll like the mansion,” Tony promised the man as they packed their things. Tony would be loading their things into his car by himself, and then they would be leaving at three in the morning, when Tony's neighbors wouldn't be around to notice the strange man accompanying Tony from his house. The streets and highways would be near deserted, and even if they did have to share the road with other drivers, no one would be able to see through the custom tinted windows of Tony's brand new Porsche (a graduation present to himself).

“Why are you so sure I'll like it?” the man asked with a scowl. He'd been scowling ever since Tony had announced that he wanted to get the hell out of Boston.

“Well, Jarvis is there. You won't have to steal food if I forget to go grocery shopping, and he can get you clothes. And he's kind of awesome. You'll like Jarvis ten times more than me. Plus, the mansion is in a remote location, surrounded by Stark land and protected by the best technological security known to man. There won't be a bunch of strangers going in and out, there won't be any noises in the street to surprise you or make you nervous, and... it's just quiet, comfortable, and safe. I'm definitely not saying that we have to stay there forever, but it will be nice to get out of the city for a while.”

The man sighed in irritation, but didn't put up a fight. He didn't seem to understand that the Stark mansion was Tony's real base of operations, and not the townhouse or MIT. Tony's father had paid good money to ensure that Tony had a private lab on the campus, but the campus was still a public, unsecur location, and they'd had to stock the lab with equipment that had already been patented in case anyone tried to break in and steal anything. Therefore, the advanced, experimental equipment the Starks favored using in their homes had been banned from entering Boston. But the workshop at the mansion was tricked out.

Plus, Howard's secure files and vaults were located in the mansion. Tony hadn't been aloud anywhere near the secure vaults when he was young, but two hours before Tony left for MIT when he was fourteen, his father had shown him the vault's locations and he had given Tony their access information while simultaneously giving Tony the _Stark men are made of iron_ speech, the _You're a man now_ , speech, and the  _All of this will be yours someday, and it will be your responsibility_ speech.

Tony had never had the chance to poke through the vaults, despite his burning curiosity, but now he'd have the time to give the vaults a good look over. And he'd bet his own left arm that inside of those vaults, he'd find information on his assassin friend and his real identity. He thought he'd also find information on Hydra, and maybe even something about Captain America, if he were in fact a real person, and not just an actor in a costume like everyone believed.

Tony didn't share any of that with the man, though. They still had a long way to go before the man was fully recovered, and he still had urges to return to the Soviet Union and report to Hydra from time to time.

Tony would be researching PTSD during the summer, as well as cult deprogramming. Jarvis could help, Tony thought. The man had seen war. He'd seen World War II, same as the assassin. Plus Jarvis understood emotions and stuff like that. He could help the man. Probably way better than Tony could, even though Tony had actually taken classes on the subject (and he still stood firm that robots were easier than humans any day).

“Why are you so nervous about this?” Tony asked as he secured DUM-E in the large crate he'd be shipped in. Tony would have insisted on transporting the bot himself, but he was kind of in a hurry to get out of Boston, and DUM-E couldn't exactly fit in the back seat of his Porsche. Instead, DUM-E had been insured for more money than most people saw in their lives, and the movers had signed contracts which basically stated that if the robot was so much as scratched, then Tony Stark would own their souls.

“I'm comfortable here,” the man stated. “I know this place is safe.”

“Except, it's not,” Tony pointed out. “One of our neighbors could press their faces against the windows and you'd be spotted.”

The man scoffed, and okay, the man would be able to hear anyone approaching their windows from a mile away, but still.

“What if I regress?” the man asked. “What if I forget who you are and where I am?”

Tony took that question as a personal offense. “Okay, you had a reason to forget me when there was a microchip in your brain zapping your memory every twelve hours, but honestly, do you believe you could ever forget me _now_?”

Tony was offended again when the man replied, “No, I guess not,” while sounding very displeased about that fact.

Tony rolled his eyes, checked his watch, and finished reassuring DUM-E that they'd see each other soon before securing the lid on the crate.

“It will be fine,” Tony assured the man. “You'll see.”

* * *

It took them four hours to drive from Boston to Ithaca, New York, where the Stark family mansion was located. It was supposed to take five and a half hours, but Tony had been breaking traffic laws ever since he was 9-years-old and stealing one of his father's cars for the first time. They left early enough that they arrived at the manor around seven in the morning.

As Tony pulled the car into the circle drive in front of the house, he was delighted to see Jarvis waiting for him on the front steps, despite the early hour. He hadn't seen the man since his parent's funeral, and Tony had missed him.

As Tony rushed up the front steps for a hug (Jarvis was usually too professional for hugs, but he allowed the show of affection when he hadn't seen Tony for long periods of time), the man said, “Welcome home, Tony, and congratulations on your recent success. I've seen your newest invention featured in several popular magazines.”

And yeah, that was kind of a big deal. Tony and his father had published articles in tech mags and scientific journals all the time, but it was always exciting when they were featured in the more widely read publications.

“Hey, Jarvis,” Tony greeted after giving the man a tight hug. “Thanks for holding down the fort while I was gone. Everything going okay?”

“As well as could be expected, sir.”

And there it was – the man's tired frown which Tony had started noticing on the man's face when his parent's had first announced that they would be sending Tony to boarding school. The frown had grown more and more pronounced as the years went by, but now it was almost devastating. Tony felt suddenly guilty for leaving the man in the manor all by himself for so long, and he regretted that he hadn't even thought of inviting the man to Boston with him.

“Tony?” Jarvis asked. “Who's your friend?”

Tony turned to see the man slowly climbing out of the passenger side of Tony's car, and he turned to Jarvis with a chagrined grin.

“Yeah, about that... I don't know. I mean, Hydra sent him to kill me, but I realized that he had a Brooklyn accent sometimes and that he was probably brainwashed, so I had a couple of microchips removed from his brain and now I'm rehabilitating him. He's doing loads better than he was a few months ago, and he's started remembering things from his life before Hydra kidnapped him and brainwashed him, but he still can't remember his name.”

It was a credit to Jarvis' professionalism (and probably an unhealthy amount of desensitization to Stark shenanigans) that Jarvis didn't try to kill the assassin _or_ Tony in the minutes or hours which followed Tony's announcement. But after Tony had received a proper scolding, and after the man had been informed that he would be restricted from entering half of the manor (primarily the workshop and Howard Stark's former office), Jarvis had quickly and efficiently helped Tony and the man settle in.

That night, after Tony was in bed and the man was once again _under_ his bed, the man said, “Okay, you were right. This place isn't so bad. Even your bedroom floor is comfortable. Jarvis is nice, too.”

Smugly, Tony said, “Told you,” before mashing his face into his pillow and sighing at the familiar comfort of his childhood home.

* * *

Tony was left speechless by the wealth of information his father had hidden away in the seven different vaults hidden around the manor. He'd always thought that the atomic and hydrogen bombs were the scariest weapons his father had ever worked on, but Tony found blueprints for machines and equations for chemical weapons which sent shivers down his spine. He hadn't known his father was capable of restraint, but the man had kept the most dangerous and destructive of his creations carefully hidden and locked away.

Then, there were piles and piles of records detailing some of Howard Stark's shadier business transactions, and there was an entire filing cabinet full of projects which Howard Stark had declined to work on because the people organizing the projects were such creeps.

And Holy Science, Tony discovered that the only reason his father encouraged Tony to ever hang out with Tiberius Stone was because Howard Stark was privately investigating the business practices of Ty's family, with an end game of shutting Viastone down and utterly ruining the company. Tony was simultaneously relieved, impressed, and pissed. Relieved that his father hadn't _really_ wanted Tony to be friends with Ty, who, again, was a sociopath, impressed because his father had compiled _almost_ enough documentation to shut Viastone down and shut them down hard, and pissed because his father could be such a manipulative jack-off sometimes.

During Tony's research and revelations, Tony was glad that Jarvis was around to entertain Tony's assassin, because when Tony started looking through the vaults, he locked himself in his father's office for almost two weeks strait.

And Tony hadn't even _started_ looking through the vault below the workshop yet!

It was while Tony was looking through the contents of the third vault that he found what he was really looking for – documentation, honest to Einstein documentation of the super soldier serum used on Steven Grant Rodgers in order to create Captain America. The documentation was incomplete, sadly enough, with huge chunks of information missing, but there were before and after photos of the _test subject_ , and the man in the pictures looked an awful lot like the man in the movie reals his father used to watch.

And there was more – documentation on Captain America's part in the war, the Howling Commandos (they were real! All of them were real! How the hell had the lot of them become urban myths and little more than kiddie comic book icons only forty years after the war had ended?!), Hydra, Johann Shmidt, and Hydra's bizarre weapons (and what the hell was Tesseract? Tony saw the word only once, and there was no explanation accompanying it).

It wasn't that Tony hadn't believed the man when he'd said that Hydra had kidnapped him and brainwashed him (Tony saw the microchips to prove it), but at the same time, Hydra had been the fantastical villains in all of Tony's bedtime stories while growing up, and Hydra had been painted as the monsters who lived under naughty little boys' beds. Honestly, he'd hoped the man had been pulling his leg with that one.

But there was the proof, dates and times and missions documented in his father's very own messy, hurried scrawl.

And finally, Tony found the pictures. The pictures of Captain America mid battle, pictures of Johann Shmidt and most of his lieutenants, pictures of some of the people Shmidt's men had preformed human experimentation on –

And then Tony found the pictures of the people who were apart of the SSR. There was a single picture of Dr. Erskine, a handful of a woman Tony recognized as his Aunt Peggy, a dozen pictures of Tony's father and –

Tony frowned. He recognized his father in the group photo, but nobody else. Tony turned the photo over in order to inspect the picture and found words written on the back.

_Howard Stark, Peggy Cartter + The Howling Commandos – Dum Dum Dugan, Gabe Jones, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Jacques Dernier, & James Falsworth._

Tony blinked, then turned the picture over, surprised that he hadn't noticed Dum Dum (because he _knew_ Dum Dum, but hadn't known he'd been a Howling Commando) or Peggy in the picture – but there she was, tucked under a big man's arm and grinning proudly. And now that he looked, he recognized post-serum Steve Rogers, as well. And –

Tony's breath caught. Because he _recognized_ those eyes, and that dimpled chin, and the way his short hair curled a little once it had grown out –

Frantically, Tony flipped the photo over in order to inspect the name neatly written next to Steve Rogers'.

“ _Bucky Barnes_ ,” Tony breathed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about advanced technology, medicine (or medical technology. I had an MRI once when I was 6-years-old, though), and I took psychology 101 in college five years ago, and that class didn't really cover any of the topics I'm writing about in this story. I'm not an expert on anything (except knitting, which hasn't really helped with this story any), and all I know about brainwashing, I know from documentaries about cults. I apologize for any wildly inaccurate descriptions or misused scientific terms. I did the bulk of my research for this on Wikipedia, so. Ooops. 
> 
> Also, Tony's opinions about psychology as a science are purely his, not mine. I know that it's a debated topic, but honestly, I don't know enough about it to have a valid opinion one way or the other, and I think psychology in general is pretty nifty. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and continue reading on!


	2. James Buchanan Bucky Barnes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets his name back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is told in Bucky's POV and picks up where the last chapter left off. Hope you enjoy!

_James Buchanan Barnes_. _Bucky. Bucky Barnes._

Once he had the name, he had the memories which went with it. They all came back to him in fits and starts, but they crowded his mind in only a matter of days, and the accompanying headache was divine.

He remembered growing up in New York City, _in_ _Brooklyn, just like Tony said_ , during the depression.

He remembered his _mother_. He hadn't thought of her in years. Decades. And not with any sort of alacrity since the fall, when he had deliriously called out for her (even though, or maybe because, he knew she was already long dead) as he was dragged through three feet of snow, all but numb to the pain.

That day had been cold. As cold as Brooklyn in the dead of winter, when their apartment was heated only by the weak warmth of the kitchen stove. He remembered sitting on the ratty living room couch, wrapped in hand knitted blankets with his mother curled against the far arm of the couch while Steve was wedged in between them. They drank heated milk. Not cocoa, not coffee, not tea. They couldn't afford those luxuries, but that warm milk had soothed his soul.

During the war, they drank liquor to keep warm (that wasn't actually why they drank it, but it was a nice side effect). Whenever they met up with Stark, he was sure to slip them the good stuff, the best stuff, stuff with a satisfying burn as they poured it down their throats. Even Steve drank Stark's liquor for that warm burn.

Lord. Howard. He'd killed Howard Stark.

He'd never really known the man, beyond occasionally drinking together and competing for women's attention. But Stark had taken care of the Commandos. He'd taken care of _Steve_ , in ways he _\- Bucky_ , he remembered. His name was _Bucky -_ Stark had taken care of Steve in ways _Bucky_ hadn't been capable of, after Steve had been given the serum. Stark had designed Steve's armor. He'd given Steve his shield. And he - _Bucky -_ had killed him.

"It wasn't you," the boy - Tony, he had to remind himself. He wasn't a mark. He was a person. He was Howard's son, a brilliant engineer, and _Bucky's_ savior. His name was Tony - told him for what had to be the hundredth time.

And how did the boy - Tony - always seem to know when _Bucky_ was thinking of his father?

"It wasn't your fault. It wasn't _you_. It was Hydra."

That's right. It was Hydra. It was the people who had built him. But they'd only built him after _unmaking him_. It had taken five years, five years of excruciating surgeries, experimentation, torture, and what Tony called _conditioning_ for Bucky Barnes to forget his mother's name. It had taken five years for him to stop caring weather or not he had ever had a mother at all.

He'd killed the boy's - _Tony's_ \- mother, as well.

"It wasn't you."

That's right. _Howard_ had been his mark. The other agents had taken care of the woman.

He couldn't stop the grin which pulled at his lips when he remembered how _angry_ Stark had gotten when he'd laid eyes on his dead wife. Up until that moment, the man had been a stumbling, stuttering drunk, but after, he had been _efficient._ Stark hadn't been able to kill him ( _Bucky? James? No, the thing that Hydra had made)_ , but he'd _obliterated_ the other five Hydra agents who had been assigned to assist him with the mission.

"It wasn't you," Tony said again.

Then who was it? Had it been the thing that Hydra had created? He wasn't that thing anymore. Tony had plucked that thing right out of his head. But he wasn't _Bucky_ anymore, either. Bucky had been slowly and systematically destroyed in an underground Hydra facility over a five year period.

"James. Buchanan. Bucky. Barnes," he said slowly. The name was familiar. It was his own. But it tasted strange on his tongue. He had been a nameless Russian weapon for far longer than he'd ever been James or Bucky or Barnes.

In the bed above him, the boy sighed. "Get up here," Tony demanded.

He ( _James?_ ) didn't hesitate to follow Tony's orders. He couldn't sleep on any mattress, not unless Tony was sleeping on it as well, and only if _Bucky_ had talked himself horse first. But simply lying on the mattress with another person's warmth soaking into his side made him feel more human than anything else had in years.

Being given his name was a close second.

"What's up?" Tony demanded without shifting his face away from where he had it pressed into his pillow.

"It doesn't sound right," he sighed. "It's my name. I know it. I remember it. But it doesn't sound right any more."

"Then get a new one," Tony said flippantly.

It used to bother him that Tony never seemed to take him seriously. It had driven him _insane_ when he was still nothing more than Hydra's weapon, hovering over the boy in an attempt to make him work more quickly on his arm, his memory, on _fixing_ him. The boy had never reacted to his threats or intimidation tactics, not the way the assassin wanted him to, _expected_ him to, and the boy's unpredictability had driven him to distraction. He had been trained to read people and react to their fear, and anger, and desperation, but the boy had never expressed _any_ of those emotions. The boy's apathetic behavior had upset him after the surgery, as well. But now... after he'd gotten used to Tony's attitude and mannerisms... he appreciated it, kind of. Tony always _listened_ , at least, and he never dismissed him (Hydra had never permitted him to speak out of turn. Not to complain, or ask questions, or express himself in any way. Now, he sometimes talked just to prove that he could). And Tony did take _some_ things seriously. A lot of things. Just... not always the same things as other people. And sometimes, now, it was nice.

The name didn't feel right on his tongue, but... It had only been a few days since Tony had revealed to him what his name was. He had time to settle back into it. He had time to repeat it over and over, until it was familiar once again. And if that didn't happen, he'd just get a new name, like Tony said.

"If James or Bucky doesn't end up working out for me, I'll go by Anthony," he decided.

"Jerk!" the boy cried, suddenly sitting up and throwing a pillow at him. "You can have my name after you pry it from my cold, dead hands!"

 _Bucky liked to tease people_ , he remembered as he let Tony clumsily hit him with the pillows from his bed. _I like teasing people, too_.

* * *

"Why hasn't anyone come looking for you?" the boy asked one morning. "I mean... It sounds like you're kind of a big deal. Hydra put a lot of time, and money, and research into brainwashing you. You were their best agent, right?"

"Weapon," Barnes said bitterly as he fidgeted with the straw of his drink. Tony had gone into town that morning in order to pick up some packages full of parts (it was Jarvis' day off, or else he would have gone into town, instead), and he'd picked up a chocolate malt for Barnes on his way back to the mansion.

They'd been putting off this conversation for months. He _hated_ talking about Hydra, and Tony didn't much like hearing about the organization, but they _needed_ to have this conversation, no matter how much they were both dragging their feet about it.

Tony blinked at James, too distracted by the materials he was unpacking to properly process Bucky's correction. "Excuse me?" he asked.

"I wasn't Hydra's agent. I was their weapon," he snarled. He took a vicious pull from his malt, then said, "And they haven't come looking for me because you aren't dead. My programing dictated that I always, _always_ return to base after a certain amount of time, even if I failed a mission or it was only half finished. They think I'm dead."

"That's a pretty big leap in logic," Tony said slowly. "That leaves room for a lot of loose ends."

"It's something they prepared for, though. The thinking was that I was the best, but not infallible." James fiddled with his straw for a moment before setting his malt aside. He'd use it as comfort food _after_ this conversation, rather than bitterly enjoying it during. "They never trusted me. Not even when I hadn't fought my programing in years. They always sent another agent with me on missions. To assist me, and to manage me. But for..."

"For Mission 95-OKS-378?" Tony asked, and Bucky flinched. The _OKS_ stood for Operation Kill Stark, because Hydra hadn't often hired people for their _creativity_.

"Yeah, for 378," he finally decided on saying (because the 378 meant that it was the three hundredth and seventy-eighth time they'd _attempted_ the KS part of the operation. "For 378, they sent five agents with me."

The boy stopped sifting through his packages and blinked at him for a moment. "Five? Why?"

"For two reasons," Barnes replied. "First, because I knew Howard in my previous life. We didn't know each other _well_ , but we spent time together, and he was a big part of my life in the army. I think they were afraid that seeing him would cause me to fight my programing. And second, they sent five additional agents because if anyone in the world had the technology and ability to take me down, it was him. And yeah, he didn't kill me, but he slowed me down for sure. And he killed all five of the other agents Hydra sent to help with the mission. He _obliterated them_. No bodies left to find, even. That, combined with the fact that you weren't dead by the time Stane burst into your room, and the fact that I never reported... No one has come looking for me because they think I'm dead."

The boy was staring at him with furrowed eyebrows and a contemplative scowl. He was upset about something, Barnes realized. Then, _shit, he'd just gone into way more detail about killing Tony's parents than he had ever meant to_. James was always careful to toe that line - Tony said it wasn't his fault, and it wasn't him, but one day the boy would realize that he was _living with his parent's murder_ , and Bucky didn't doubt that the boy would kick him out, at best, and kill him, at worst.

"You recognized Obi?" Tony asked slowly, tasting the words in his mouth as he said them. "When he came into my room that night - you didn't really know who I was at the time, but you knew _him_?"

Bucky blinked, because that was _not_ what he had been expecting.

"Yeah," Barnes finally said, realizing that he _had_ in fact recognized who Obadiah Stane was before he'd recognized Tony. "378 was his idea. He made sure that Howard and Maria drank more than they usually would while attending the party. He was the one who provided the driver's reference when Howard was hiring a new chauffeur. The driver was Hydra, too. It was his job to make it look like Howard had been drunk behind the wheel, and it was Stane's job to find your body in your dorm room and confirm the kill."

Dumbly, the boy repeated, "It was Obi's idea..."

Slowly, James nodded. "It was his idea," he confirmed. "He only brought Hydra in so they would do the dirty work for him."

It wasn't until Tony was up and out of the room that Barnes realized that he was _no longer an agent of Hydra_ , and Tony Stark _was not his mission commander_. And talking to Tony Stark _did not mean that he had to deliver full reports_ without emotion or tact.

Good Lord, what a mess.

* * *

Bucky had never seen Tony Stark cry, and he'd killed the boy's parents, he had tried to kill _him_ , he had alienated the boy from his friends, he had essentially held the boy prisoner for two months, and he'd recounted his memories of killing people and being tortured to the boy in vivid detail. So it was very unsettling to walk into the foyer to find Tony sprawled over Jarvis' lap and openly sobbing.

When Jarvis noticed him entering the room, he leveled James with a disapproving, disappointed stare, but the man didn't order him to leave. However, James was still uncomfortable with moving any nearer. Usually, when he saw people crying, it was because they were mortally wounded or _about_ to be mortally wounded, and it wasn't his job to comfort them. Barnes was in unfamiliar territory, and it was making him nervous.

After watching Bucky stand on the far side of the room and fidget uncomfortably for a few long minutes, Jarvis finally took pity on him and gently suggested, "Why don't you go to the kitchen and make some cocoa for us?"

Mission acquired, Barnes quickly marched out of the room and across the house to the kitchen. He spent far more time on the cocoa than strictly necessary, opting to heat milk on the stove while he dug around the pantry for unsweetened cocoa powder and sugar (he'd watched Jarvis make cocoa this way, and Tony claimed that it was five times better than instant cocoa powder, although Bucky believed that the boy really only liked it so much because Jarvis took the time to make it for him). After he'd mixed the cocoa and sugar (and a dash of salt) into the milk, Barnes determined that not enough time had passed, so he added a bit of nutmeg to the three mugs he had poured and broke into Jarvis' secret marshmallow stash to top it all off.

Fearing that stalling any longer would result in him adding yet _more_ ingredients to the drink and making the mixture inedible, he finally balanced the three mugs between his hands and carried his peace offering back to the foyer.

When he arrived, James found that Tony had stopped crying, and Jarvis was laying down the new law.

"-can't do anything until we have irrefutable proof," the man was saying. "Also, Obadiah has majority control of your company until you turn 21, so the Board of Directors will _literally_ let him get away with murder, because for now, he has all the power. I know patience is not a virtue you strive for, sir, but patience is what you must have."

"You can't be alone with him," Barnes decided as he handed out the cocoa. "He's a master manipulator-"

"Yeah, but now I _know_ he's a master manipulator," Tony said bitterly.

"Exactly," Barnes continued. "You now know what he's doing, and you'll know what to look for in his behavior. The first time you catch him attempting to manipulate you, you'll loose your temper and blow your cover. Unless you're not alone with him."

Jarvis didn't add his own opinion, deciding to take a sip of his own drink, instead, but the boy conceded with a pout. "Yeah, I guess," he grumbled.

"You can make your move when you retake control of your company when you're 21," Barnes promised. "In the meantime, though, stay low, stay quiet, and keep your head down. No more revolutionary technology which might take attention away from the work Stane is doing with Stark Industries, no grand achievements, and no bad publicity. Until we have a plan of action, you need to keep your head down. Got it?"

Tony groaned, slamming his cocoa back as if he was doing a shot of tequila. "That sounds _so boring_! Ugh, whatever. Rhodey's leaving for the Air Force in July, anyways. And Ty's going to start working at the Viastone offices in Chicago, so it's not like I'll be getting into any trouble with either of them. Still, I hate this corporate espionage bullshit. I just want to build stuff."

Jarvis gave the boy's knee a sympathetic pat. "Sir, it sounds like you won't be able to do anything _but_ build for the next few years."

"Yeah, but I won't get to show off any of my amazing technology and rub people's faces in how cool and awesome I am."

"You can show off your amazing technology to Mister Barnes and I," Jarvis informed him, "as I'm sure neither of us will be going far, either."

* * *

That night, after Tony had wandered out of his workshop and into bed, James slid out from his place beneath the bed and keeled on the floor next to the mattress.

"I'm sorry," he muttered. "That I didn't tell you about Stane earlier, I mean. It just... didn't occur to me. I'm so used to not asking questions or thinking at all, really. Lord, Tony, you have no idea how often people used to talk in front of me, simply because they knew I wouldn't repeat anything that I'd heard. It wasn't my job to report on people. They made me kill _their own men_ , sometimes. Internal power struggles, you know? And I would know about the hit _weeks_ in advance, and I'd be in the same room with my handlers and the Hydra agent they wanted me to kill, and everyone  _knew_ that my mark would be dead in a couple of weeks, but everyone just kept talking like nothing was out of the ordinary. It was just... another normal day. And then I'd show up in their homes to kill them and they were always _so shocked_ , because they knew it wasn't really _me_ killing them, but their comrades, and... That _was_ a normal day for me..."

"Why didn't you kill me?" Tony asked tiredly.

Bucky blinked at him in return. Tony turned so that he was sitting up in bed, and they were facing each other.

Tony would be turning 18 in five days, but in that moment he looked far older than his years. Tony was rumpled and dirty from his time in the workshop, and there was a burn on his right forearm (which was telling, because Tony was _never_ clumsy while welding). He looked tired and worn, and Bucky realized that the boy's life had probably been turned on it's head today. He'd found out that his parents had been killed by Howard Stark's closest and most trusted friend. He'd found out that his _godfather_ had organized his death, as well.

James wished there was something he could do to help. It seemed like the kid had been taking care of him for _months_ , putting all of his energy and time into helping Bucky. Tony had taken _psychology_ classes for Bucky. He'd studied something he considered _fake science_ in an attempt to understand what was going on in James' head. And he felt guilty, for putting all of that on a kid.

"I always wondered. It never... quite made sense to me, why you didn't kill _me_ ," Tony told him. "Especially when I realized that one of the microchips in your brain basically zapped your memory every twelve hours, like a reset button. And you'd _threaten_ to kill me, but you never actually did... I just can't figure out _why_."

And okay. He wanted to help Tony, so maybe he could start here. Instead of simply talking about his memories and dreams, he could actually explain himself, so that Tony could finally understand.

"There were a lot of reasons," Barnes said slowly. His memory of the time he spent with Tony before the microchip removal was a little hazy. Not _gone_ , but... he'd been zapped so many times, it was hard to immediately recall the memories. It was easy enough to think of them when they simply _came to him_ , but purposefully recalling them gave him a headache sometimes. "A lot of things happened the night your parents died. A lot of things which had to happen in a specific order for things to have worked out the way they did. That memory wipe every twelve hours? That wasn't a normal thing for me. That was a part of... a procedure which would occur if my handlers ever thought I was... _confused_ or _regressing_. But before I went after you, when I was fighting with your father, he _did something_ , used some weapon which gave me a pretty good shock, and I think it made that microchip malfunction. It wasn't a major malfunction, but it... That constant shock kept me... I don't know how to explain it... It kept me off balance. I couldn't concentrate sometimes, I couldn't remember my instructions, my mind was muddled. So I didn't react to the situation in the way I would have, otherwise."

"So that _malfunction_ is what saved me?" Tony asked, frowning.

"The malfunction, as well as the fact that I recognized your father to some extent, and you look like your father, and were so _young_."

"You didn't like killing kids?" Tony asked.

Uncomfortably, James shrugged. Sure, he had killed children, but it wasn't something that happened often. It wasn't something that had happened in the past eighteen years. When Hydra wanted children dead, there were usually quieter, more efficient ways of doing it than sending _him_. "I didn't care one way or the other. And my programing didn't allow for me to hesitate. But I think... I think I _wanted_ to hesitate. When I first saw you, you just gave me the excuse, when you said my arm was cool. That... wasn't a reaction I had been programed to anticipate. I was programed to respond to fear, anger, even acceptance. But how was I supposed to react to _cool arm_? Then you said that my arm was inefficient."

At this, Tony gave Bucky an irritated frown. "I said I could make it _more_ efficient," he argued. "I never said it was _inefficient_."

Barnes shook his head, leaning forward to rest his head on the edge of the mattress. "Doesn't matter. If I hadn't heard you calling it _inefficient_ , I probably would have gone ahead and killed you. Inefficient was the magic word, had been for years. I was a _weapon_ , Tony. Efficiency was what I was built for. And after the fight I'd just had with your father... He _hit me_. He _landed hits._ No one had done that in years. So between essentially getting my ass handed to me by your father and then you saying you could make my arm better..."

"Where were you after that first night, though? I didn't see you again until the party, and after living with you for a few weeks and knowing how your were programed, it always kind of confused me that you didn't go back to the Soviet Union to report, rather than hanging around with me."

"I did go back, actually. I made it to the country's border, anyways. But then I turned around, because you said you could make my arm more efficient, and the engineers at Hydra said they wouldn't have any more upgrades for my arm for two more years. I made the decision to come back right after the microchip gave me a little jolt. If you hadn't told me that you could fix my arm, and if the microchip hadn't scrambled my brain for a while, I would have gone in to report like I was supposed to."

"Huh," Tony said. "And if all of that hadn't happened, I'd probably be dead, and you'd still belong to the Soviet Union."

Barnes nodded.

"I like these results the best," Tony decided. He gave Bucky's shoulder a light slap. "You belong in good ol' New York, not Russia. And I belong alive."

Back gave Tony a tired grin in response. "Can't argue with that," he agreed.

* * *

Tony Stark was shit at emotions and interpersonal communication. James understood that _perfectly_ after he'd met and spoken with Jarvis, who was far easier to talk to than Tony ever was. And he _understood_ , in a way that Tony never could. Tony was great at listening when Bucky needed to talk, and he was good for a distraction, but the boy _never understood_.

"I wish I had met you sooner," Bucky told the man as they sat talking in the kitchen one day. "I wish I'd met you right after my surgery. Things might not have been so... confused, if you'd been around to talk me through."

At this, Jarvis gave a small, bitter smile. "Tony means well," the man told him. "He's better at understanding machines than people, however. I assume that the two of you got on well before the surgery occurred?"

"Well...yeah," Barnes grudgingly murmured. "Even though I hurt him and threatened him all the time, we worked and lived together well enough. Things didn't go to hell until after the microchips were removed."

Jarvis nodded with a small, bitter smile. "Tony should have had help, when he was young. Howard never trusted doctors, though. Not after what he saw doctors do to people during the war. Howard refused to hand his son over to people who might harm his son in the same way he'd seen dozens of other people harmed. However, that meant that Tony never had the chance to receive the help he truly needed..."

Bucky scowled at the older man. "Tony's not hurt."

"No, not in the way that you're thinking. He's very intelligent, insightful, and creative. He's even happy, most of the time. But he doesn't see the world the way most people do. I've always suspected that he suffered from some sort of emotional disorder. Nothing sever, nothing which keeps him from functioning for the most part. But he has so many numbers running through his head, and sometimes I wonder how much room there is for anything else. But because Howard distrusted doctors so much, Tony was never diagnosed or treated. I've always wondered if things may have been easier for him, if maybe he would have been a little more comfortable inside of his own skin... And on top of any disorders he may or may not have, he's been very secluded most of his life. He's _never_ had friends his own age. He didn't have friends at all before he went away to college. Tiberius Stone has always been around, but that boy... he's four years older than Tony, and that boy has always been disturbed. I never liked that Howard encouraged him to come around this house. His influence on Tony did nothing to improve Tony's understanding of the world. That boy only ever hurt him."

Barnes understood. He knew what it was like to be cut off from other people, then manipulated and coerced by the few people who remained. And he'd seen Tiberius Stone with Tony, both before and after the microchips had been removed. Before, Stone had only been an annoyance -- he had constantly barged into Tony's dorm room uninvited and unannounced, and he never understood that "no" meant "no." It had sometimes taken Tony an hour to get the older man to leave him alone. And when he saw Tiberius Stone interacting with Tony _after_ he'd regained his humanity (i.e. his basic understanding of appropriate human interactions and moral values), James had been disgusted by the 21-year-old. He had often wondered why Tony ever gave Stone the time of day.

Giving a rueful sigh at the conversation, Jarvis stood and started on dinner.

Tony said that Jarvis had fought in the same war as Bucky. Tony said the man knew how to use knives, and guns, and his hands. And as Barnes studied the man while he prepared dinner, he could believe it. The man was old, with graying hair and deep lines etched into his face, but he stood tall with his back strait, and he had a solid center of gravity -- Jarvis would be a hard man to knock down. Then, James watched Jarvis as the man cut vegetables to add to the stew he was making. His movements were quick, precise, and efficient. The assassin in Bucky recognized the elderly man as a threat. Tony had told him that the Starks had never hired guards for their home because Jarvis was the only guard they needed.

Apparently, Jarvis was also the only maid, gardener, cook, doctor, and nanny the family had ever needed, as well.

There were very few people James Buchanan Bucky Barnes admired (besides Steve and Tony, of course), but he decided that Jarvis was one of them.

He didn't agree with Tony's initial assumption that Bucky would like Jarvis _more_ than he liked Tony, though.

Sure, Jarvis was a good man -- one of the best James had ever met. When he thought of his first day in the manor, his first time meeting the older man, he remembered the calm grace which Jarvis used to handle the situation, never falling into anger, and never showing annoyance or displeasure. He had never made Bucky feel unwelcome, even if Jarvis had made it clear that Bucky didn't have his trust. He had indicated that he would give James the chance to _earn_ his trust, though, which was more than Bucky really could have hoped for.

Yes, he greatly respected the man. But Jarvis just... wasn't Tony Stark.

* * *

"Let's go do something," the boy demanded.

Bucky quickly blinked awake, turning his head to look at Tony. The boy (and really, he shouldn't call him that any more. Tony's eighteenth birthday had been two weeks ago) was once again hanging over the edge of his bed, his hair flopping down towards the floor and blood rushing to his cheeks. Bucky was always surprised when Tony could maintain this position for long periods of time without becoming light headed or dizzy.

"Do something?" James asked, instantly awake. "Like what?"

"I don't know. Let's go outside, go for a walk, watch a movie, _make_ a movie, whatever. Let's just do something. I feel like I haven't done anything exciting in _months_ , and it's starting to make my skin itch. Come on, Bucky, let's go paint the town red."

"I thought you were working on the AI for Jarvis today," James pointed out.

After the minor success of DUM-E, Tony had spoken of almost nothing else but refining the technology and building it up to something that was actually _practical_ , rather than utilizing the technology on small pieces of electronics that yeah, could learn and assist, but couldn't truly act independently without someone directing them in some way. Tony wanted something that could  _predict_ a person's needs, not just  _respond_ to them. Tony had decided that while DUM-E was his undergrad project, the AI he was building to assists Jarvis would be his Masters and Ph.D. project all rolled into one. Because if Tony had to keep quite and stay off of Obadiah Stane's radar, he'd spend his time creating something _good_.

"Bucky, I'll have _more_ than enough time to work on Jarvis' AI over the next few years," Tony sighed. "But if I do _nothing_ than work on that AI, I'll be finished with it in a year, tops. And _then_ what will I do? Design technology for Obadiah Stane? No. I need a distraction. All work and no play makes Tony a dull boy, Bucky. And you need to get out of the house. Seriously, Barnes, I know that we're all afraid of Hydra finding you again, but we can't let our fear of those ass wipes dictate our lives. And you need to start integrating back into regular, polite society. I can't hide you in my attic forever. So lets go do something, just to prove that we can be kinda normal for a day," the boy challenged.

And yeah, Tony had a point. In fact, in that moment, the boy actually sounded a little like Steve. Steve had never liked bullies, and he'd always believed that just because a bully might be standing at some street corner wasn't a good reason to walk a mile out of the way in order to avoid them.

"Alright," Barnes finally agreed. "You said... You said we could make a movie? What kind of movie? And wouldn't we need a set and a crew? How can we make a movie without all of that?"

Slowly, Tony Stark's face was overtaken by a big, bright, mischievous grin. Upside down, and with all of the blood rushing to his face, he looked pretty ridiculous. But as he sing-songed, "Oh, how the times have changed, Barney! Wait until you see what I can do!" Bucky could feel his heart racing in excitement. And he thought, yeah, Tony Stark is just a kid. But he has the whole world ahead of him. And if he wanted to share a bit of that world with James Buchanan Bucky Barnes, then who was he to argue?

* * *

"So hey, I thought you could make some of that pasta primavera for lunch today," Tony casually told Jarvis.

And that was Tony's mistake: he'd said it _too_ casually, and both Bucky and Jarvis had noticed the force behind the off-hand comment.

"That will be fine," Jarvis answered. "Pasta primavera, you said? We haven't eaten that since Rhodey's last visit."

Tony twitched. And seriously, how had Bucky been unable to get a read on the kid all of those months ago, pre microchip removal? Tony's body expressions read like an open book.

"Tony," Jarvis said slowly, "Will Rhodey be visiting the house this afternoon? While a defected Soviet assassin is living and hiding here, and trying to peacefully recuperate from his trials?"

Bucky liked that Jarvis referred to his time with Hydra as _a trail_ , as if there were never any uncertainty that he would come out on the good side of things.

"He's being deployed next week," Tony weakly explained. "I don't know when I'll see him again, and I made him some toys to take with him that could help make sure he comes back at all. And I, uh... Bucky's done great with meeting you. I maybe kind of hoped he could meet Rhodey now, too?"

At this, Tony turned wide, hopeful eyes towards Bucky.

" _Tony_ ," Jarvis sighed, and it was the exact same sigh he'd released after Tony had first announced that he'd brought a stolen, brainwashed assassin into the house.

"Rhodey's the good one, right?" Bucky asked. "Not the 21-year-old man who propositioned a 17-year-old on a regular basis-"

Tony kicked him under the table while Jarvis' lips thinned and his eyes flashed. Which, good, because if Tony ever tried something like this with Tiberius Stone, Bucky wanted to be sure that Jarvis would put his foot down and deny the man entrance to the property.

"Yes, Barnes," Tony hissed. "Rhodey's the good one. And I'm glad you recognize that now, because back at MIT you wouldn't let me hang out with him because he was _black_ -"

And Bucky flinched. He was sorry for that. Really he was. But Hydra had been sure to program him with their own narrow-minded, depraved opinions before ever letting him out into the world.

" _Hey_ ," Jarvis interrupted before Tony could further force his foot into his mouth.

Tony flinched, then mumbled, "Sorry. Just some residual pent up rage. It really sucked that I couldn't speak up for him back then."

"Tony, Rhodey doesn't need for you to defend him," Jarvis murmured. "He's six years older than you and a head taller. He's been fighting his own battles for a long time."

Now, Tony grinned. "He won't be a head taller anymore," he said wickedly. And it was true. A week ago, Tony had noticed that he was finally, _finally_ , growing in a vertical direction. He'd been ecstatic when he had realized that he'd grown an inch in the past six months, gaining some of the height he'd been promised when he'd initially started puberty. Tony was still a little small for his age, but Bucky doubted that would last for much longer. Howard had been a tall man, after all, and Tony just seemed... more, than his father. Tony's personality was already larger than his father's ever was, and Tony needed the height to go with it.

"Mister Barnes," Jarvis sighed. "This decision is up to you. If you're uncomfortable having a stranger in the house, Tony and his friend can meet and have lunch in town."

Again, Tony turned big, hopeful eyes to Bucky. And Bucky knew -- this wasn't just about seeing his friend off to the army or trying to integrate Bucky back into the world. It was about Tony explaining to his best (only, really) friend that no, Tony hadn't abandoned him this past year, and no, Tony hadn't stopped caring about him, but he'd been dealing with some shit that he hadn't been able to talk about. Tony wanted to apologize, in his own backwards way, and explain why he hadn't spoken with Rhodey nearly as much as he should have in the past several months.

"It's fine with me," Bucky found himself saying. "I wouldn't mind meeting him."

Tony beamed at him.

* * *

When Bucky officially met Rhodey, the introduction was much the same as when he was introduced to Jarvis.

"So this is Bucky. He fought for America in World War II, but after he was injured during battle, he was taken by Hydra agents -- which yeah, Hydra exists -- and they brainwashed him and turned him into an assassin, then sent him to assassinate me. But I stole him and removed a couple of microchips from his brain, and now he's on the up and up, but we're lying low here and keeping a low profile because the Soviets think he's dead, and because Obadiah Stane was the one who organized my parents death, and we think he still wants me dead, too."

Behind them, Jarvis gave _that sigh_ for the second time that day.

Rhodes was staring at Bucky in vague horror. "You're the man who broke into my apartment and told me to stop sticking my nose where it didn't belong. You said you'd cut it off."

Bucky blinked, because he didn't remember- "Oh," he muttered, frowning. "Sorry. I... I forgot about that..."

"Side effect of the brainwashing and microchip removal," Tony helpfully supplied. "He still has trouble remembering things from time to time."

"I thought someone sent him because I was looking into government patents for my thesis project!" Rhodey cried. "I didn't..."

"Sorry," Bucky said again.

"Wait," Rhodey said, holding up his hands. "Wait," he said again. "Hydra? Bucky? Bucky Barnes? From the comic books?"

"Oh, I forgot that you read those," Tony mumbled.

"Rhodey," Jarvis said from behind them. "Would you like to come inside? I've made pasta primavera for lunch today."

"Pasta primavera sounds great," Rhodey automatically replied.

* * *

Latter that afternoon, after lunch and while Tony had run off to grab the "toys" he'd made for Rhodey, Rhodey asked him,"So you were keeping Tony prisoner for the last half of fall semester?" Because they'd actually discussed the situation over lunch, beyond Tony's initial garbled explanation. And Rhodey had actual _details_ now.

Bucky nodded. "It was before the microchips had been removed. My programing made me... pretty rough."

"I know," Rhodey responded, and again, Bucky remembered that he'd threatened to cut off Rhodey's nose.

Rhodey was shaking his head. "I can't believe Tony didn't say anything. I knew that boy could make some stupid decisions from time to time, but he's going to get himself killed one of these days."

Backy could only hum in agreement.

"And you knew Captain America?"

"Steve," Bucky replied, nodding. "We grew up together, knew each other most of our lives."

Again, Rhodey was shaking his head. "I can't believe he was a real person."

"I can't believe that people nowadays think he wasn't," Bucky said, frowning. "He was one of the boldest soldiers on the front. He didn't just fight for America, but for the people of Europe, as well. And he gave his life for his country. But now he's been _trivialized_."

"I wouldn't say that," Rhodey murmured. "I read the Captain America comics while growing up. I idolized Steve Rogers. My friends and I used to pretend to be the Howling Commandos. Those comics were part of why I wanted to join the army and serve my country."

"Huh," Bucky murmured. It wasn't the same as his friend being properly respected and memorialized, but he was glad that _something_ of Steve survived, even if it was only his spirit. Steve's spirit was the important part anyways, Bucky thought. "He was the reason I joined the army, too," Bucky muttered. "I wanted to make him proud. And when they kept declining his enlistment, I thought I'd have to go out there and fight twice as hard to make up for what they were missin out on."

Rhodey nodded. "He was as great in real life as he is in the comics, then?"

"Better, probably," Bucky muttered.

"You boys talking about me?" Tony asked as he wandered back into the room, several large packages in hand.

"You wish," Bucky and Rhodey replied as one.

* * *

The mansion had a gym. The equipment was outdated (and for the Starks that was a Big Deal), dust coated almost every surface, and even though there was an indoor track, weights, and a punching bag, the entire room seemed... small. Bucky had grown used to associating the Stark name with Big, Grand, and Ostentatious. Stark Manor's gym was practically medieval compared to the training facilities Hydra had built for him.

Behind him, Jarvis murmured, "This is it," sounding far more wistful than Bucky thought the occasion warranted.

This morning, Bucky had simply asked, wondered, if there was any way for him to keep in shape while living at the mansion. For the past forty years, while acting as an operative of Hydra, Bucky had exercised all day, every day when he wasn't out preforming his _missions_. He had grown complacent in the months living with Tony thus far, and he didn't want to loose his edge.

Jarvis had explained that there were several trails on the property which Bucky could run, and there was also a gym.

Unlike the townhouse in Boston, Bucky hadn't explored much of the Stark mansion, not after his first day when Jarvis had explained that parts of the mansion would be off limits to him until Bucky had proven himself trustworthy. So no, Bucky simply trusted that the grounds were properly secured and that if there was any part of the mansion he needed to see, someone would show it to him (and Bucky uses the term _trust_ very loosely, because he itched to inspect every inch of the manor, and his paranoia often kept him awake at night).

Thus, after the question he had asked over breakfast, Jarvis was showing him the gym for the first time.

"It's... small," Bucky commented. "Smaller than I expected for the Starks."

Jarvis chuckled. "That's because this gym wasn't built for the Starks. It was built for me."

Bucky turned to the man with raised eyebrows. Logically, yes, Bucky knew that the man was well trained and could handle himself, but after growing to know him, on a personal level... Jarvis was as close to harmless as Bucky had ever seen. And that was even after he had compared the man to per-serum Steve Rogers. He couldn't imagine Jarvis running laps around the small indoor track until his legs ached, and he certainly couldn't picture him working over one of the punching bags which was hanging in the center oval of the track.

Jarvis met Bucky's incredulous stare with a small grin.

"I met Howard Stark during the war," Jarvis explained. "And my introduction to the Stark household was actually quite similar to yours. I was a stray that Howard Stark picked up while visiting the Royal Air Force. I was a commodity, really. But I quickly became a permanent fixture in the home and was hired as the family's butler after the war ended. This gym was commissioned and built by Howard Stark _before_ I had become a permanent fixture here. This place was meant to be a bribe. It was meant to entice me to stay. I was a boxer, in the RAF, you see. That's how Howard and I met. He attended one of my fights. And he decided that I was worth the trouble of... well, of _this_ ," the man man murmured, gesturing to the room. "Yet... I haven't used any of this equipment in almost thirty years. _This_ isn't why I continued to work with the family after the war."

Bucky again inspected the gym. And he could just _imagine_ it. He could imagine telling Tony that he needed a proper place to work out, and he could imagine Tony tearing this place to the ground and rebuilding it from scratch for him, and to his specifications, despite the fact that the gym had been commissioned for Jarvis to begin with. Of _course_ Tony would do something like that.

Beside him, Jarvis smiled. "I know this probably isn't what you were expecting, but I can-"

"No," Bucky interrupted. "This is perfect." The weights weren't as heavy as he was used to, but he figured he could make up for the lighter weight by doing a higher number of reps. And it would be better to run in the hills and trails throughout the property, rather than doing slow laps inside. And the punching bag... That thing would be torn apart by the lightest tap from his metal arm. And that bag was Jarvis'. Bucky didn't want to break any of the other man's things, so he'd leave the bag alone.

* * *

As Bucky wrapped up his morning run (sprint, really) and approached the manor, he broke his stride. Which was unusual. He'd been out for three hours, and he hadn't eaten yet. Jarvis always made sure that a veritable feast was ready for him when he returned from his runs. And about half a mile out from the house, he began smelling the food. On most mornings, once that scent hit him, he was _desperate_ to get to the house and to the food. But today, his steps began to falter just as he reached the back garden.

He was hungry, he was thirsty, and he could smell both the bacon and the coffee waiting for him in the kitchen, but even as he wanted to go inside, his feet carried him to the patio next to the pool, and he collapsed into one of the plush lounge chairs at the poolside.

Bucky felt gross. He'd woken up from a nightmare at five, and when the sun had started to rise at six, he'd decided to start his run a little earlier than usual. It had been a chilly morning, and he'd left the house in sweats. Once the sun had started shining in earnest, the air had quickly warmed, and now Bucky was a sweaty, smelly mess. His sweater was sticking to his skin, and he peeled it off with a disgusted twist of his lips. He had the impulse to throw it into the pool, but he knew that Jarvis would be the one left fishing it out, and Bucky didn't want to make any superfluous work for the man. So he threw himself into the pool, instead.

The water was nice -- it washed all of the sweat and dirt from his skin, and he immediately felt better.

When he came up for air, he noticed Jarvis standing at the edge of the pool. "It's a beautiful day," the man commented. "Would you like to have your breakfast outside this morning?"

"Yes, please," he immediately responded.

Jarvis brought him him his coffee and a towel, then carried out three covered plates of food and set them on a poolside table.

Halfway through the meal, Tony wandered outside still wearing his pajamas and greeted Bucky by asking, "Jeez, was your nightmare really that bad?"

Bucky blinked at him in response. Because honestly, he'd completely forgotten about his nightmare. "What?" he asked.

"Dude, you look like a zombi," Tony said as he plopped into the chair across from Bucky and stole one of his plates. "What gives?"

"I... I don't know what you're talking about," Bucky murmured. "I feel..."

He had been about to say that he felt fine, but he realized that wasn't true. He felt... _off_ , somehow. He'd felt off ever since the sun had began to rise that morning.

"Well?" Tony pressed as he stole a sip of Bucky's coffee.

"I don't know," Bucky muttered. He thought over his morning, remembered running over hills and through the forest, and he twitched when he remembered the stifling heat of his sweatshirt. His sweatpants were still sopping wet from his dive into the pool, but the weight felt fresh, rather than smothering. "I can't... I can't remember the last time that I was just... outside," he realized. "Hydra kept me in an underground bunker most of the time, and... and when I _did_ go out, it was only for missions. And Russia was cold. I _always_ felt cold. Even when I was given missions in tropical climates, while I was wearing thick pants and armor, I was always cold."

That's what his nightmare had been about. He hadn't dreamt about the war, or his fall, or his _training_ , or his missions. His dream had been about the cold, dark halls of the bunker. He spent so much time in chilly, dimly lit gray rooms that when he had been sent outside for missions, the bright light of day had blinded him. It was part of the reason those dark goggles had been included in his uniform.

"Well, you're lucky we're living in New York and not Alaska, then," Tony decided. Then, as Jarvis arrived at the patio with a plate for Tony and a pitcher of orange juice, Tony told the man, "Break out your swimming trunks, Jarv. We're hanging by the pool today."

"Very good, sir. Perhaps I'll prepare lunch on the grill."

"Sounds great," Tony agreed.

After that morning, a post jog dive and breakfast on the poolside patio became routine for Bucky, and it was one of his favorite parts of his day. It was something which was _his_. There was nothing about jumping into the pool and then eating a big, filling breakfast while dangling his feet in the pool's water that made him think of Hydra, or the war, or of anytime before the war. It was something which existed only in this time and in this place, and for Bucky, that made all the difference. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just to reiterate, I've never read any of the Marval comics. The info I have about Edwin Jarvis was procured from Wikipedia, and I embellished his back story quite a bit.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Tell me what you think!


	3. The Summer of '89

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forty years is a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: more mentions of underage sex in this chap. Also, mentions of non-con masturbation? Not really sure how to tag it.
> 
> This chapter is in Bucky's POV again. This story began in October of 1987,the last chapter left off in the summer of '88, and this chap picks up in the beginning of the summer of '89. Enjoy. :)

Every morning when he awoke, he reminded himself that  _My name is James Buchanan Barnes. My friends call me Bucky. I am not a weapon. I'm currently living at the Stark family mansion. The person breathing in the bed above me is Tony Stark, and I shouldn't wake him up or he'll be grouchy for the rest of the day._

Every day he reminded himself of all the things in his life which were different from a year and a half ago, and every day he felt less inclined to repeat his various mantras. Nearly a year and a half after regaining his mind and identity, the words were something he _knew_ , and it took less and less energy to prompt himself to remember even the most basic facts about who he was.

Today, it was his birthday. _And Tony's._

When Tony had initially discovered Bucky's name, he had immediately searched for _any_ information he could find on Bucky's previous life. One of the more delightful tidbits of information he'd found was that Tony and Bucky had been born on the same day, exactly 50 years apart. Sadly, though, they hadn't discovered his birth date until _after_ the day had passed the previous year. They were going to celebrate together today, though.

 _I shouldn't wake him up or he'll be grouchy for the rest of the day_ , Bucky repeated to himself as he slowly slid out from his place under the bed. 

It was easier, now, to sleep on a mattress. He could sometimes get a full eight hours in, even. But only if he fell asleep with Tony in the bed, with him. And most nights, Tony didn't wander into bed until the early hours of the morning, by which point Bucky had already been asleep for several hours. True, he usually woke up when the younger man wandered into his room and began preparing for bed, but by that point in the night Bucky was warm, and comfortable, and drowsy. And why the hell would he move when he didn't have to?

It was still, _still_ a novel concept that he could do what he wanted, when he wanted to do it. He didn't do anything unusual or _exciting_ most days, not unless Tony or Jarvis suggested it first, opting instead to follow one or the other around the house while they went through their normal daily routines. But it was the little things, like _choosing_ to sleep on the floor, instead of being _made_ to sleep on the floor, which still delighted him.

 _I shouldn't wake him or he'll be grouchy for the rest of the day_ , Bucky had to say again as he crouched on the floor next to the bed and watched Tony sleep.

Tony wasn't such a kid any more. When Bucky had first met him, Tony had been 17-years-old, 5'5", and a child living like an adult. He'd seemed even smaller than he truly was while he was at MIT, surrounded by people who were older and bigger than him. Tony was a late bloomer, and he was very vocally bitter about the fact that he'd had a growth spurt and started growing a proper beard and some hair on his chest only _after_ he had graduated from college. Today, on his 19th birthday, Tony didn't look like a wide-eyed gangly little punk anymore. He'd grown an astounding four inches over the past year (he'd actually been confined to bed for a few days because of his growing pains), and all the work he did in the workshop had finally begun to stick to his arms and legs, giving him some impressive muscle definition.

 _It's his birthday. I shouldn't wake him or he'll be grouchy for the rest of the day_.

Well screw that. It was Bucky's birthday, too, and he should get to treat himself just this once.

Bucky slid quietly and quickly into the bed and underneath the covers.

Tony slept just as lightly as Bucky did, and the dip of the mattress and the tug of the sheets immediately woke him up.

"Noooo," Tony groaned when one of his eyes slid open and he glanced at the clock hanging on the wall across from the bed. "You jerk. I have been in bed for _literally_ forty-five minutes."

"Then go back to sleep," Bucky demanded.

"I can't get to sleep when you're just sitting there _staring_ at me."

"Liar," Bucky chuckled, finally getting into a comfortable position on his side, facing Tony.

"You don't get cake," Tony decided. "None. Jarvis is going to make me cocoanut cake, and you will have to sit there quietly and watch me eat it all and you won't get even a crumb."

"That's fine," Bucky decided. "Since, you know, Jarvis is making a separate _chocolate_ cake for me."

"DUM-E gets your cake," Tony declared before pressing his face into his pillows. 

Despite his insistence that he wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, Tony was snoring again within moments.

Bucky wasn't surprised, especially if it _had_ only been forty-five minuets since Tony had come in from his workshop. He'd been in one of his creative flurries for the past three days, and he'd hardly come out of his workshop for more than an hour at a time. Tony claimed that he was getting to an exciting bit of coding for Jarvis' AI, and if Tony was able to make the program work like he wanted it to, the AI would be able to have a much more extensive presence in the house than Tony had initially planned for.

"With this bad boy, Jarvis might actually get to retire, spend the rest of his days living in the lap of luxury like he deserves," Tony had said, very pleased with himself.

"I don't think Jarvis wants to retire," Bucky had responded. "I don't think he'd know what to do with himself if he wasn't working."

"He'd finally have time to learn needlepoint," Tony had said. Then, the next day, he'd bought a beginner's needlepoint book for Jarvis to read over, as if that would convince the man that he shouldn't feel like working anymore.

Tony didn't look peaceful when he slept. Tony _never_ looked peaceful, not that Bucky ever saw, anyways. Jarvis claimed that there were brief moments, directly after Tony had finished big projects, where Tony was worn out and satisfied and still. But Bucky still wasn't allowed into Tony's workshop, so he didn't get to see those moments. No, Tony didn't look peaceful when he slept. He looked _exhausted_. There were several cuts on his hands (and where did those come from? Tony said he'd been working on code for the AI). He hadn't shaved since the beginning of his workshop binge, so his chin was covered in short, coarse hairs, there were darkening circles under his eyes, and he was snoring. He looked the same way Steve had after a particularly bad asthma attack, or after a battle. Tony looked like he _needed_ to shut down, was trying to shut down, but couldn't.

Bucky wanted to touch Tony's jaw and run his hands through Tony's overgrown hair. But if Bucky were to wake him up _again_ , Tony might actually kick him out of his room. So he contented himself with watching Tony's eyelids flutter and listen to the short huffs of Tony's breath.

It wasn't a bad way to spend his birthday, Bucky thought.

* * *

For Tony's birthday, Rhodey sent Tony a piece of tech which he had "acquired" while he was deployed overseas. Tony was delighted, because apparently the sorry piece of tech was a knock-off of one of his father's designs, and the poor craftsmanship of the device was hilariously pathetic.

Tiberius Stone sent Tony a package, as well, but Tony wouldn't let Bucky or Jarvis see it, because, "Ty and I are fighting," he said shortly, "and he's just being a jerk." Bucky later found out that Stone had sent Tony _pictures_ and a threat of releasing said pictures to the press. Bucky wondered what Stone and Tony were fighting about, but Tony didn't seem concerned about it, and so Bucky wasn't either.

Bucky had never had cake for his birthday before. While growing up in Brooklyn before the war, there hadn't been enough money to spend on cake. Instead, his mother had made his favorite pork stew for dinner and he received a bit of candy for dessert. _During_ the war, the Howling Commandos had pitched in to procure him _company_ for the evening, rather than cake. Steve hadn't approved, but it was war, and the locals were desperate for money, and the woman had indeed been a _woman_ , rather than a girl. And Bucky had made sure that she had enjoyed his birthday just as much as he had.

He missed his mother's pork stew, and he missed the Howling Commandos (if not the _company_ they purchased for him), but Bucky discovered that he enjoyed cake quite a bit, too. He'd asked for chocolate cake because chocolate was everywhere nowadays, and he'd only had it on a few occasions while growing up, but he wished that he'd asked for something a little less... rich. Tony's cocoanut cake was subtle, and light, and exotic. Jarvis suggested that Bucky might appreciate a lemon cake for next year.

And as for presents... well, he didn't receive anything in a box or wrapped in paper, but Tony proudly showed Bucky the schematics for the arm he was building for Bucky.

"I'm having some trouble procuring the materials to make it," Tony explained to him after he'd gone into detail about the arm's capabilities. "As far as Stark Industries and, well, everyone else is concerned, I'm here building computers, not weapons, so it would be kinda hanky for me to have some of these components sent to the manor. I _could_ go the black market route, but I don't really want to encourage business for SI's _competitors_."

Bucky nodded along, not really concerned with how long it would take him to get the arm. He was more interested in Tony's sleek design and the intricate detail used for the arm's joints.

"I thought you were going to design an arm without open edges," Bucky remarked, "so that fabric couldn't get caught in it."

Tony hummed. "I have _a_ design that's like that, but I realized that a closed design would decrease your maneuverability, and it would leave the joints vulnerable. Nothing worse than someone sticking a needle into _just_ the right part of your elbow and rendering your entire arm as nothing more than dead weight and scrap metal. Nah, I'm designing you an undershirt out of material that _won't_ catch in the edges, and if it somehow _does_ rip and get caught in your arm, it will be light enough that it won't clog your cogs too much and it can easily be removed. With the undershirt on, you'll be able to wear heavier material over it. I should have some undershirts ready for you in just another month or two." At this, Tony wiggled his eyebrows, because concealing the arm meant that Bucky would be able to go out in _public_ again. He'd been confined to the manor grounds long enough that the idea was very, _very_ enticing.

"I didn't get you a present," Bucky told Tony ruefully.

Tony replied with a dismissive flip of his hand. "I got _myself_ a present," he said with a grin, and he was suddenly spinning a keyring around his index finger. "And it has tinted windows. Wanna go for a drive this afternoon?"

With a grin, Bucky nodded.

* * *

Obadiah Stane dropped by the manor the day _after_ Tony's birthday. The man brought Tony a nice, shiny watch and stayed for lunch, then he left.

After Stane was gone, Tony disappeared into his workshop for an hour, then reappeared in the library with a wide grin on his face. They met specifically in the library because while, yeah, most of the house was covered by bug-canceling technology, most of that technology was just for show, so that people who tried to bug the house _thought_ they had subverted the Stark's security. In truth, though, the _true_ anti-surveillance technology was set up in the library (which Bucky thought was Stark Humor at its best, because of _course_ they would put the only kind of anti-technology technology they approved of in a room full of books).

"Happy birthday to us!" Tony sang, waving something around which looked like a small handheld gaming device.

Jarvis humored the man, asking, "What is it?"

"It's the transmitter for the bugs Bucky slipped into Stane's car, briefcase, and onto the gun Obi keeps in his glove compartment. We'll be recording where Obi goes, what business he does, and how he uses that gun. SI won't have the tech to detect those bugs for another ten years, at least, although it better not take ten years to get the drop on the guy. And, and, and! The pièce de résistance! Bucky, Jarvis, would either of you like to do the honors?" he asked, producing the watch Stane had given him as well as a hammer he'd had stuffed down the back of his pants.

"All yours," Bucky assured, while Jarvis sighed and shook his head at Tony's antics.

As Tony positioned the watch on the surface of a solid, worn table (apparently _dozens_ of people had tried gifting the Starks with bugged watches over the years, and as a result there was a designated _table_ for this particular tradition), Tony said, "Oh, man, sorry Obi. I forgot I was wearing it! You know these decorative pieces of shit don't last long when I wear them in the workshop!" and Tony brought the hammer down on the watch's face.

* * *

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," Tony announced.

Jarvis hummed. "Some have said so," he murmured absently as he polished a pair of shoes. Tony was standing directly in front of him, but Jarvis kept his eyes on his work rather than on Tony, who was fidgeting with his hands. Bucky sat on a lounge chair across the room. He _had_ been reading, but he decided that watching Tony talk to Jarvis was far more interesting than reading _1984_.

"Yeah, so my AI is modeled after you. If he's half as capable as you are, then I'll consider the project a success."

Jarvis responded to this announcement with a smile. "Well that _is_ flattering, sir. Have you built his chassis yet? Because if he looks anything like DUM-E, I may find myself offended."

Tony chuckled, the sound low and pleasant. Bucky knew that he had been really nervous about talking to Jarvis about this, afraid that the man wouldn't appreciate having an AI modeled after him, and Jarvis' reaction to his announcement had probably delighted him. Bucky also knew that Tony would be pleased that Jarvis had addressed the AI as _him_. Tony had stopped referring to the AI as an _it_ several weeks previously, when he'd starting writing the AI's personality coding.

"This AI's going to be larger than life," Tony told Jarvis with a grin. "Too big for a wimpy little chassis like DUM-E's. He's going to fill the entire manor."

"Will there still be room for any of us, then?" Jarvis teased.

"No, but I'll make sure to leave some space for your needlepoint projects," Tony teased back.

"Is he almost finished?" Bucky asked, inserting himself into the conversation.

Tony turned and nodded with an easy grin. "I'll be able to start putting him into the walls by the end of the summer, and he'll be fully operational by September."

"Very good, sir," Jarvis said, finally looking up from his work in order to gift Tony with a proud grin.

* * *

Tony knew about sex. He knew _a lot_ about sex. Bucky was sure of this, after his time with Tony in the dorms at MIT, when Tiberius Stone would barge into Tony's room and pester Tony with invitations and innuendos.

Tony knew _plenty_ about sex.

More importantly, he knew about sex with _men_.

Bucky had been around the block a time or two himself. He'd gained plenty of experience before the war, and a little more during the war (those Italian girls had some neat tricks). But he'd never gained any experience with men. Before Tony Stark, he'd never even _thought_ about having sex with men.

But Tony was Tony. He wasn't uncomfortable with his body. Not at all. After he showered, he wasn't shy about walking naked and completely uncovered from the bathroom to his closet _every single time,_ regardless of where he was or who was watching. He'd even done it when he was living in the dorms at MIT, sharing a bathroom with a whole hall (even if he had a private room).

Tony liked sex. He talked about it often. Not in much detail, but he whined about missing sex more often than not. He even had a counter -- X number of days, XX number of hours since he had last engaged in intercourse, and he avidly kept track of the number.

And sometimes, Bucky remembered Stone barging into Tony's dorm room, inviting Tony out for a bit of fun or trying to entice Tony into bed. And Bucky... he wondered if he would have _ever_ considered having sex with a man if he hadn't heard Stone proposition Tony so often, if he hadn't heard the man tell Tony, "I want your mouth on my dick. I want my dick in your ass." He wondered if he would have ever considered having sex with a man if Stone hadn't looked at Tony with that eager leer, those raised eyebrows and that tilted smile, as if he knew exactly what he was asking for and knew _exactly_ what Tony's mouth and ass felt like, and he couldn't wait to feel them again.

Bucky wondered...

Bucky hadn't had sex since the war. He hadn't _wanted_ sex since the war.

After Hydra had injected him with their last reserves of Erskine's original formula, they'd preformed _tests_ on him -- mostly to see if they could use his semen, blood, or tissue to develop more of the stuff. But it had all been very clinical. No one touched him, and he had hardly touched himself. And it hadn't... It hadn't left that satisfied, relaxed bonelessness he'd always felt before, even when he was jerking off in the middle of a fucking trench, when it was cold and raining and death was palpable in the air.

And his conditioning... there wasn't room for things like excitement or arousal or _release_ for Hydra's Soldier. Release greatly elevated the chances of an _emotional outburst_ from the subject, so it was taken away from him, just like everything else.

But Tony gave him those things back.  _All_ of them. Even if after the microchip removal, _excitement_ and _arousal_ had been buried under pain and rage and confusion. But now, over a year and a half since the microchip had been removed...

He walked in on Tony masturbating in the shower one morning.

It wasn't anything that hadn't happened before. It wasn't anything that hadn't happened _dozens_ of times before. Tony used orgasms as a self-reward system. If he completed a project, he rewarded himself. If he finished a particularly tough line of coding or an equation, he rewarded himself. If he had a great new idea, he rewarded himself. If he said something he thought was particularly clever, he rewarded himself.

Tony rewarded himself _often_. So yeah, Bucky had walked in on him a few (more than a few) times.

But today, Bucky actually paused and watched for a few moments.

His eyes lingered on Tony's arching form for three seconds longer than they ever had before, then he continued towards the sink to brush his teeth and go through the motions of his morning routine (because seriously, this happened _so often_ that Tony didn't even bother to pause when Bucky walked in on him anymore).

That day was the beginning. He'd already been in love with Tony for months by then, but that's all it had been -- just love, not lust. It had been so long since he'd felt arousal of any kind, he didn't think that he _could_ get aroused anymore. But in those three seconds, something _shifted_. Something in his brain that had been disconnected nearly forty years before finally fell back into place, and suddenly, Bucky _took interest_.

The next time Bucky walked in on Tony in the shower, Tony wasn't masturbating, and Bucky didn't pause to watch as Tony washed his hair. But while Bucky brushed his teeth and shaved, he looked at Tony out of the corner of his eye, the clear glass of the shower's door hiding absolutely nothing from his sight.

After that, the next time he saw Tony naked was when he was simply walking to his closet after finishing his shower and drying off. Bucky had been lazing around under the bed, and Tony didn't notice Bucky's eyes on him as Bucky watched his long legs, muscled thighs, the tall arch of his back, his wide shoulders, his arms, the way Tony's fingers curled and twitched in the air, as if he were trying to grasp something or type something into a keyboard.

The forth time, Tony was in the shower and masturbating again, and that was also the time that Bucky got his first erection in over forty years.

* * *

It was 2:00 in the morning, and Bucky had been sleeping, but when a rumpled Tony peered under the bed at him and cried, "Come out! It's finished! Try it on!" Bucky shuffled out from his sleeping place to figure out what Tony was so excited about.

The material of the sleeve was thin, and smooth, and Bucky almost wanted to tell Tony that thanks, he really appreciated the man's efforts, but this fabric was going to shred to pieces even as he tried sliding his hand into the sleeve.

Tony gave him an encouraging nod, foot tapping out a pattern against the floor. "Go ahead," he urged, his eyes fixed on the sleeve and Bucky's metal arm.

The material was white, and it felt cool against his flesh, as if it were made of silk. And geez, this stuff was going to be shredded to ribbons in a heart beat-

Except that when he slid his metal arm into the sleeve, the fabric stretched and settled over the jutting edges of his arm, and it didn't so much as catch as he slid the material on. Bucky was able to quickly and easily pull the fabric up to his shoulder, and just like that, the metal of his arm was concealed.

"Well try it out!" Tony demanded. "Stretch your arm out, flex the joints!"

Bucky did as he demanded, turning his arm one way, then another, bending his elbow, rolling his shoulder -- he'd been doubtful when he saw that Tony had only made a sleeve for his arm, and not an entire shirt. He hadn't believed that the material would be capable of staying in place on his shoulder without something to hold it in place. But it stayed firmly in place, stretching with the joints of his arm but sliding free before it could catch in any of the joints as they closed.

"Neat," he murmured.

"Yeah?" Tony asked with a grin. "Think it will do?"

Bucky nodded.

"Great! Put on a shirt! Let's go out to the movies! You haven't been inside a modern movie theater, have you? Well you'll think it's great. And then we can go get some dinner afterwards-"

"Tony, it's two in the morning," Bucky interrupted with a fond grin. When Tony began to pout, Bucky told him, "We'll go tomorrow. In the afternoon, even, when it's light outside."

Bucky's heart almost stopped when Tony replied, "It's a date."

Dinner and a movie? Yeah, Bucky thought. It _was_ a date.

* * *

No one had seen Tony Stark in public since he was 17-years-old, 5'5", and incapable of growing a beard. When he and Bucky went into town together, they only had to disguise themselves with hats (and a long sleeved shirt and glove for Bucky's left hand), and they were able to walk the streets of downtown Ithaca without disruption.

"Great Science," Tony muttered, "five years ago, if I had walked down a street in Ithaca, I would have been instantly swarmed. This is _weird_. Hey, Buck, go up to one of those people over there and ask about the hermit Stark."

Bucky glanced to the pair who were sitting on a bench in front of a pizza shop and immediately knew, "Those aren't locals, Tony. That girl and her father are probably visiting town and scouting the college. They wouldn't know anything about the hermit Stark. And seriously? You want me to ask someone about you?"

"Yeah! Rich, handsome, intelligent, living in a huge mansion outside of town with only the family butler to keep me company -- I want to hear the horror stories they've come up with for me. Oh, bookstore, perfect. You go in there, get a couple of books, and ask around. I'll go next door and get us a couple of sandwiches for lunch, yeah?"

Bucky rolled his eyes, but he agreed.

Spending the day in town with Tony was... really fun. Much more fun than he thought it would be. He thought he'd hate going out into public again, but... no one noticed him, even though he was wearing a long sleeve shirt and a glove on his left hand in the middle of summer. No one looked at him with fear or distaste... people hardly looked at him at all, and if they did, their eyes lingered on him for only a moment before they dismissed him and turned their attention somewhere else. And it was fun to watch people. It was fun to study how different the clothing was compared to when he was growing up (in 1989, women wore pants, men wore pajamas in public rather than slacks and ties, and everyone wore shirts which would be more flattering on a sack of potatoes than a human figure). And he liked watching people smile at each other, joke around with each other, and be _nice_ to each other. He had gotten used to doing all of those things with Tony and Jarvis, but those two... they were the exception after forty years of neglect and abuse and disregard. And the thing was... the people in Hydra hadn't only treated him that way, they had treated _each other_ that way, as well. It was nice to look around and remember that, yeah, that _wasn't_ normal behavior.

Inside the bookshop, he randomly wandered the isles until he found a section labeled "Westerns," and he remembered that he had liked watching John Wayne movies with Tony and Jarvis, so he grabbed a couple of books at random and took them to the cash register.

The elderly man behind the counter smiled at him and asked about his day, and Bucky smiled and told him things were fine. When the man noted that he'd never seen Bucky before, he asked if he was visiting or looking into attending college at Cornell.

"I just moved here," he replied.

"Yeah?" the man asked with a grin. "Where to?"

"Just west of town," he answered.

Immediately, the man's eyebrows rose. "You, uh, anywhere near Stark's place?"

And wow, that had been easy.

Bucky nodded his head. "Pretty close, actually. What's the, uh, story there?"

The man shook his head and clicked his tongue. "A tragedy, really. The couple that lived there, Howard and his wife Maria, you've heard of them, right?"

Bucky nodded, because _yeah_.

"Well their son, Anthony, was away at college, and the couple went to a party. No one's sure exactly what happened, but best guess is that Howard's wife caught him cheating on her with another woman while at the party, and she confronted him about it while they were driving home. Howard Stark had been drinking heavily that night, and he was behind the wheel of the car. So they fought. No one can tell if Howard Stark crashed the car while he was distracted with his wife, or if she grabbed the wheel-"

"Why would they think that Maria had grabbed the wheel?" Bucky asked, frowning. There were a lot of facts wrong with the story -- and how could anyone know if the pair had been fighting on the way home or _what_ they had been fighting about? Tony wasn't kidding when he said that people would make up horror stories about the family.

In reply to his question, the man shrugged. "There was something weird about the accident. I'm friends with one of the officers who was first on the scene, and he said that the car was too busted up to tell, really, but he said there was something _off_ about the interior of the car. So we figure the Starks were fighting before the crash. But _whatever_ happened, the car crashed, and Howard and Maria died. And Anthony Stark..." The man shook his head now. "The poor boy lost it. He dropped out of college, returned to his family's home, and hasn't been seen since. Everyone thought he would change the world, he was so intelligent. He used to come into town from time to time when he was younger, and everyone knew him, but... even when he was a child, there was something a little off about him. Didn't know how to talk to people. No one was really surprised when he shut himself up after his parents died."

"I see," Bucky muttered. He and the man exchanged a few more words, then Bucky hurried outside to find Tony.

He was leaning against the wall of the sandwich shop, already biting into his meal. "Well?" Tony asked with a raised eyebrow. "What's the word?"

As Bucky took his own sandwich from Tony, he explained, "He said that Anthony Stark dropped out of school after his parents died."

Tony stared at Bucky with an open mouth, which was disgusting since he'd been in the middle of chewing a bite of food. Then, he hissed, "He called me _Anthony_? No one's called me Anthony in _years_."

" _That's_ what you're upset about? Not that they say you dropped out, even though you graduated when you were 17-"

Tony waved his hand in dismissal. "The story wouldn't have been as good if it went 'His parents died, and then he stayed in Boston for seven more months, graduated college with full honors and a thesis project which got him on the covers of magazines, and _then_ he came and shut himself up in the house.' That's just bad storytelling, Bucky. Although, now that I think of it... Anthony is probably a better name for a recluse millionaire than Tony, so... Okay, I guess I can let it go just this once."

Bucky shook his head and quickly finished his sandwich.

They stayed in Ithaca for the entire day. They saw a movie - _Batman_ , with Michal Keaton and Jack Nickolson. It was strange, and colorful, and unlike any movie Bucky had ever seen. And after, they went to diner, just like Tony had promised.

It was exactly the same and completely unlike a dozen other dates Bucky had been on, before the war. There was no hand holding or flirtation (Bucky had a feeling that Tony had forgotten that the day was supposed to be a date), but they leaned into each others space to whisper and share popcorn during the movie, and they stole fries and onion rings off of each others plates while they were eating dinner in a small, comfortable diner.

Bucky decided that it had gone well, as far as first dates went. So when he and Tony got back to the manor, he decided to remind Tony that a date was what it had been.

"-think we should have seen _Indiana Jones_ , instead," Tony was saying as he finished locking the car in the garage and started towards the house. "You need to see the first two, though, and I thought that if you were going to see a modern movie, it should be something that wasn't set in the 1930s-"

Bucky caught Tony's arm with his metal hand, cupped Tony's chin in his flesh hand, and he kissed him.

The kiss was strange -- Bucky had only ever kissed women before, and the memories were vague, distant. But he remembered that women were soft, and smooth, and they smelled of perfume. Tony Stark's lips were soft enough, if a little chapped, and there was nothing smooth about how Tony's three day beard scratched at Bucky's own. And he smelled like onion rings. Tasted like onion rings, too.

Tony pulled away even as he gripped Bucky's shirt in his fists and pulled their chests together. "You should have waited 'til after I'd brushed my teeth, then," he laughed _and Bucky had said that out loud_.

And then Tony pulled him in for round two, his lips insistent, his tongue more so, and his arms and legs wrapping around Bucky like he wanted to climb him, which, yeah, that may have been what Tony was trying to do. It took Bucky a few moments to catch on, though, because of how Tony was sucking on his bottom lip. However, once he did, Bucky was glad to lift Tony off of his feet and carry him towards the house.

When his feet left the ground, Tony eagerly wrapped his legs around Bucky's waist and muttered, "About fucking time. I thought I was gonna die of blue balls at nineteen," then latched his lips to Bucky's neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, sexy times begin! I rarely write graphic romance of ANY kind, and I've never written slash before (even though I've written slash pairings), so I hope this chapter was okay.
> 
> I played with the timeline a LOT in this chap. According to the interweb, movie-verse Tony Stark was born on May 29th, 1970. The only info the interweb had on Bucky Barnes' b-date was that he was born in the year 1925 (and I think this was his b-day in some comic verse). Well, in the movie verse, Steve Rogers was born July 4th, 1918, and I thought it would be goofy if Bucky was seven years younger than Steve. But then, I thought about Bucky being younger than Steve, and I kinda liked the idea of a big 10-year-old Bucky backing up a smaller 12-year-old Steve in a fight. So my Bucky was born in 1920, and then I realized that put 50 years between him and Tony, and then I decided that I wanted them EXACTLY 50 years apart, thus. I thought it was a fun idea. And I had all of this worked out before I wrote the previous chapter, but I wanted to focus on things other than b-day shenanigans, so I left all that fun stuff out and put it in here, instead.
> 
> Also, I'd just like to note that I put way too much research into chocolate production, distribution, and availability to low income consumers in the 1920s and 30s in order to make, like, two lines in this chapter historically accurate. The end result: those two lines aren't accurate at all, I think. Suspend your disbelief for this story, please. I'm suspending mine. :)


	4. The Plot Thickens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The manor is attacked.

Bucky hadn't heard the door open. He didn't wake to the sound of someone walking down the hall, or the squeak of the door, or the creak of the floorboards as footsteps crossed the room. He didn't know _what_ made him wake up, but when he opened his eyes, he saw someone who wasn't Tony kneeling next to the bed and looking underneath, looking at him.

 _Stane_ , he realized.

Bucky's movements were sluggish. It took a moment for his arms and legs to respond when he commanded them to move, and then it felt like he was wading through water. He was moving _too slow_ as he pushed himself out from under the bed. Not fast enough. He wasn't moving _nearly_ as quickly as he was capable of.

When Bucky was out from under the bed, standing on his feet and facing Stane, it was too late. Then man was kneeling on the bed, Tony in his arms, a gun pointed at the still sleeping man's head. Which _wasn't right_. Bucky was a light sleeper, but Tony was _more so_. Tony woke up when _bugs breathed_. Mr. Smith had made sure of that. He had trained and _conditioned_ Tony for years, for most of Tony's childhood, so that Tony _responded appropriately_ when people attacked him. Except, Stane was _touching_ Tony. He had his arm wrapped around Tony's chest, and his hand was gripping Tony's neck, manipulating Tony's head so that it was tilted back against Stane's shoulder, and Stane had a gun _pressed against Tony's temple_. But Tony _wasn't awake_ , and he _wasn't responding_.

"You make one move towards me, and _he dies_ ," Stane promised.

Bucky froze where he stood. He found that his knife was in his hand, but he hadn't been coordinated enough to raise it to a defensive position. He wanted to throw it right into one of Stane's black eyes, but Bucky was seeing double, and he didn't trust himself not to hit Tony right now. So even though his fist was wrapped around the knife's hilt, and it was in his hand, and it was his primary weapon of choice, the knife was pointed towards the floor, and as such it was utterly useless.

Stane watched him for a moment, his eyes flickering from the knife in his hand, to his legs, to his metal arm, to his eyes, back to the knife in his hand, and then around the rest of the room.

"You're what he's been hiding," Stane stated. And as if saying it once wasn't enough, he said, "You're what he's been _protecting_. I told those idiots not to send you. Although, I thought it would be Howard who broke your programing. Not Tony." Stane let loose a hollow, bitter laugh. "Every day, every god damned day, Tony does something to surprise me. Even now, when he hasn't done anything worthwhile in years, when we're still digging up designs he made when he was  _six_. I thought Howard was the end all be all of technology, but that man was nothing compared to his son." Now, Stane sighed, the sound drawn out and resigned. "If only he could _behave_."

Bucky flinched. _Efficiency_ was the word he strove for when he was nothing more than Hydra's puppet, but _behave_ was the word he strove to avoid. _Behave_ was an order, a reprimand, a _warning_. _Behave_ meant that something bad was coming.

Hearing the word directed towards Tony made his blood boil and his muscles tense.

"Ah, ah, ah," Stane murmured, pressing the gun into Tony's temple so hard that it split his skin and made him bleed. "You move, he dies."

"He dies, _you_ die," Bucky promised. _His words were slurred_.

Although... Bucky was gratified to see that even when his words were slurred, his movements uncoordinated, and his reactions delayed, _Stane still feared him_. Stane knew who he was, knew what he was capable of, and knew what he had been capable of while under Hydra's command. The man _feared_ him. _Stane f_ _eared_ _him_.

There was a gross advantage to being underestimated, Bucky knew. But there was an advantage to being _overestimated_ , too.

He wanted to ask, _What do you want?_ , but Bucky knew that giving even that much ground would leave him at an even greater disadvantage than he already was. So he waited, and waited, and waited, even as Stane was _on Tony's bed_ , and even as Stane was pressing a gun to Tony's temple hard enough that _Tony was bleeding_. He waited, and then he waited some more.

"Here's what's going to happen," Stane finally said. And okay, the man was stating his terms. Good. Fine. Tony said that Mr. Smith said that in the event of an attack, it was important to figure out what the attackers wanted, so that you could have some sort of control over the situation. If Stane wanted to give Bucky that control, then fine. "You will go to Tony's workshop, you will gather every blueprint, every schematic, and ever equation which is stored there, and you will bring it to me. Now."

"I was controlled by Hydra," Bucky replied. "I don't get to go near the workshop."

And wasn't that convenient. Sure, he'd been bitter about that fact in the past, when he'd wanted to go to the workshop simply to look at Tony and be near him. It had upset him, that he no longer belonged to Hydra and they no longer controlled him, but he _still_ hadn't earned access to the workshop. Tony could trust him. He _wanted_ Tony to trust him. Trust him enough to let him into the workshop, into his mind, and into his body (Bucky had already gotten into Tony's body, but the workshop was the most daunting objective on his list, and therefore the most important, and therefore the priority). But now, right now, he was relieved, and thankful, and _pleased_ that he didn't have access to the workshop yet. Because even if he wasn't allowed near the workshop, Bucky knew what was down there. Tony's ideas, and his father's. And Tony had revealed to Bucky that some of Howard's tech shouldn't ever see the light of day.

"If I try to access the door," Bucky told Stane, "there's a trigger which will destroy the lab and everything in it." And okay, that wasn't true. That was from a television show he'd watched with Jarvis one evening. However, Bucky was betting that Stane was still overestimating him, and as such, the man would probably believe him if he said it was true.

And sure enough, Stane let out an irritated huff. "I want my payload, Soldier," he declared. "I want everything promised me. Howard didn't deliver, and neither has Tony, _but I know it's here_."

Briskly, Bucky nodded. "You'll get it," he promised. Just like Tony had promised him a new arm, and then still hadn't delivered almost two years latter. "You're right. There are dozens of designs down there which haven't been patented yet. They're here, and I can get to them. Eventually. I just need more time to earn his trust and get into the workshop."

Stane's eyes flashed, and he pulled the gun away from Tony's temple, only to reposition the barrel so that it was tapping against Tony's chin. "And are those Tony's designs, or Howard's?"

"I don't know anything about Howard," Bucky lied. "I only know what Tony talks about. His ideas, his designs, his experiments."

"You mean to tell me that he _hasn't_ been wasting all of his time building Artificial Intelligence?" Stane sneered.

Bucky didn't think that Stane really knew what an Artificial Intelligence was. Not the kind Tony was building, anyways. Otherwise, the man probably wouldn't sound so disgusted or scornful of Tony's creation. However, Bucky knew that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to let slip what the AI would truly be capable of once Tony had finished programing it.

So Bucky said, "Of course he hasn't. The AI was something he did to get an easy A in college. Something to wow his professors and advisers at MIT without actually putting any work into it. He has more important things to spend his time on."

Stane grinned. "Good, Soldier. You get into Tony's workshop, you get those designs, and you give them to me. And you don't say one damn word to Tony about my visit this morning. You do as I say, and I _won't_ come into your home unannounced and uninvited, and I _won't_ put a bullet through Tony Stark's head while you sleep. Agreed?"

With clenched teeth, Bucky nodded.

Stane nodded as well. "Move to the far side of the room, Soldier. Away from the door," he demanded.

Bucky did as the man commanded, his body sluggish and his feet feeling like half ton weights as he moved. Once he was against the far wall, once Stane had a clear, unobstructed path from Tony's bed to the door, the man moved.

It was like watching lightning. Bucky knew the man was in motion, and he knew where the man was going, but his eyes couldn't properly track Stane's movement. _What had he done_? Bucky already had a splitting headache. He hoped that Tony would be okay. He hoped that whatever had left Bucky feeling sluggish and foggy hadn't seriously hurt Tony.

Once the bedroom door had closed behind Stane, Bucky lurched towards Tony's bed. "Jarvis!" he cried, hoping the man would hear him, and hoping that Stane hadn't done to Jarvis what he'd done to Bucky and Tony. "Jarvis, help!"

Stumbling to the bed, he gathered Tony into his arms, checking his breathing and heartbeat. He was distressed to find that Tony's breathing was slow even as his heart was fluttering, and Bucky quickly dragged Tony from the bed and towards the windows. Once he had Tony tucked under his flesh arm, he drove his metal hand through a glass pane.

Bucky hadn't _consciously_ noticed the scent of the air, but he must have noticed it instinctively, because once the window was busted out, clean, crisp air filled his lungs. He hadn't felt like he was choking before, but after he'd taken a gulp of fresh air, he knew that he had been _drowning_ for the past few minuets.

Without hesitation, he swung out of the window. Tony was dead weight in his arm, and Bucky was having trouble focusing his eyes properly, but his metal arm had no problems finding handholds and supporting his and Tony's weight as he clumsily scuttled down the side of the house. Soon, he and Tony were fully submerged in clean, healthy air, and not in whatever had been filling the manor.

"Shit," Bucky sobbed. Because he knew that whatever that stuff was, it _had_ been filling the house, completely.

Quickly, Bucky set Tony down in the grass by the driveway. He didn't want to leave Tony there. Not when Stane had just been inside the house, and not when Tony was hurt. But Bucky knew that Tony would never forgive him, not if Bucky didn't _try_...

It was no use, though. When Bucky smashed the window and made his way into Jarvis' room, the man was already dead.

* * *

The coroner's report stated that there were no traces of unusual toxins or substances in Edwin Jarvis' body. The man had died in his sleep of a heat attack at the age of 79.

Through Hydra, Bucky had been built to withstand toxins and other invasive substances. And Tony was young, healthy and strong. Whatever had been done to his body, he was able to fight it. But Jarvis was old. He'd sustained injuries during the war, and after the war, and he'd lived and worked in a highly stressful environment for most of his life. His body had quickly succumbed to the neurotoxins which had been pumped into the manor that day.

The only comfort that Tony and Bucky had received from the coroner's medical report was that Jarvis had gone quickly.

Tony had run a myriad of blood tests on himself and Bucky after the event, but those reports came back clean (or inconclusive, in Bucky's case). Yet, after Stane's visit, Tony had vomited for a day, and after that, he suffered from migraines and shortness of breath. Bucky had been at full health by the end of that first day, and he felt a little guilty for that when he saw Tony still struggling.

They moved into the top floor of a hotel in Ithaca after the attack. Tony moved in as many electronics and computers as he could fit into the their room (they had to pay extra for the amount of electricity which was pumped into the room. They'd also had to pay extra to have contractors come in and add a dozen more electrical outlets to the walls), and he spent as much time as he could trying to work out what had been done.

And _of course_ Bucky told Tony that it had been Stane to attack, despite Stane's instructions otherwise. If that fucker thought that Bucky was going to play into his schemes, then he was an idiot.

"You said Stane wasn't wearing a mask or an oxygen tank or anything?" Tony asked for the dozenth time. He'd had trouble concentrating on anything for more than ten minutes at a time for the past few days, and he often repeated questions. Now, he was rubbing at his temple where Stane had split his skin open with the barrel of a gun. The wound wasn't healing right -- although it wasn't infected and Tony's skin didn't look irritated, his blood wasn't properly clotting. Even when Tony _didn't_ fidget with the wound, it reopened and began bleeding again whenever the bandage was changed, or whenever Tony's skin stretched, or whenever the wind blew. Tony was sad, and hurt, and grieving, and Bucky was sick of cleaning blood from Tony's face.

"I'll kill him," Bucky promised as he cleaned Tony's wound and bandaged it for the third time that day.

"Good," Tony hissed. Bucky wasn't sure if he was hissing because of the sting of alcohol against the open wound or because he was thinking of Jarvis. "But first we have to figure out what the fuck he did to my house and how we can make sure he won't be able to do it again. You said he wasn't wearing a mask?"

"No. He wasn't wearing a mask, or an oxygen tank, or anything. He was breathing normally, and he was unaffected by whatever was in the house."

"He had an antitoxin, then," Tony declared. "He took a pill, or had a shot, or drank some magic fucking potion which kept it from hurting him."

"So then we get the antitoxin," Bucky stated. "We get it for ourselves so that he can't try this trick on us again."

Tony absently nodded. For a moment, his eyes went unfocussed, and then he came back to himself. "What did he want?"

"Anything he could find, I think," Bucky responded. "He wanted into the workshop. He didn't... he wasn't impressed by the idea of you working on an AI. I think it was your father's designs he was after."

Tony twitched. "It doesn't make sense. Why now? It's been almost two years since he attacked my parents, and I haven't been doing anything to get his attention or raise suspicion. I have been doing _nothing_."

Bucky thoughtfully pursed his lips while he thought through his conversation with Stane. "I think that's actually why he was angry. He said... He said that he'd been looking up designs you made when you were six... He said he wanted his payload-"

Bucky grew still. _Payload_. In his head, when he thought the word in Russian, he _remembered_.

"Hydra," he breathed. "I remember now. Part of his deal with Hydra was that he would give them _weapons_ in exchange for killing your parents. He would give them Stark Tech, technology no one else in the world could combat. I bet he wasn't able to follow through with his part of the bargain. If he doesn't give Hydra their payload, they'll go after him."

And that's why Jarvis was _dead_. Because Obadiah Stane was a greedy, manipulative coward, and the man had bitten off more than he could chew when he got involved with Hydra.

Tony seemed to realize this, as well. "We are going to _kill him_ ," Tony snapped. The anger on Tony's face -- the pain, the desperation -- it almost broke Bucky's heart.

And then, all emotion fled. For a moment, Tony's face was blank, and his expression was unintelligible. Then, Tony tipped forward, falling against Bucky's chest, and he was sobbing.

For a moment, Bucky wanted to push Tony away, pick him up and set him down of the far side of the room so that Bucky could go to the hotel's kitchen and busy himself with making hot cocoa. Then, by the time he came back, Tony would be all cried out and ready to face the world again. Except, that only worked when Jarvis was around to take care of Tony while Bucky took care of the cocoa. So instead of worrying about cocoa at all, Bucky wrapped his arms around Tony's shoulders and let the smaller man lean into his chest.

* * *

Tony couldn't find traces of the toxin in his blood, but the stuff lingered over the walls and furniture in every inch of the Stark mansion. Tony only had to take a swab at a wall to get a reading and determine the chemical's composition.

"It has to be ingested in aerosol form," Tony mumbled as he eyed the results of his tests. _"_ Touching it or eating it doesn't have any effect. But once inhaled, it immediately attacks the nervous system."

"Can you make the antidote?" Bucky pressed.

Tony snorted. "Of course I can. I'll have to call Ty, though. We'll have to use his labs."

Bucky sighed. He didn't want to call on Tiberius Stone every time that something _biological_ came up. He already indirectly owed the man for his microchip removal. Bucky didn't want to rely of him for this, as well.

Plus, that asshole had touched Tony. It had been over a year since the two had even been in the same room, but _still_.

"Relax, Bucky," Tony demanded. "I know the guy's an ass, but I'm the only friend he has in the world. I wouldn't trust him with much else, but I trust him with science. Okay?"

"Yeah," Bucky sighed. "Yeah, I know. I just hate owing him favors."

Tony peered at Bucky from the corner of his eye, then said, "If it makes you feel any better, we aren't asking for favors. We're blackmailing him."

Bucky blinked. "What?"

"You know Ty and I have been arguing for the last few months, right? Well, my father compiled enough evidence against Viastone to sink the company. And maybe I told Ty about just how much evidence I have against his family, and now he's my bitch. Call it payback for all those years of him using emotional manipulation to get what he wanted from me."

Bucky didn't think he was supposed to feel any better about that, but he did all the same. "Alright," he decided. "I'll call it payback."

* * *

Several hours after Tony had sent the formula for the antitoxin to Stone, there was a knock on the hotel's door.

Bucky had already ducked under the bed to hide (out of habit. Stane knew about him, and he had been using his sleeve to cover his arm while in Ithaca, so the hotel staff knew that he was staying at the hotel with Tony, but he still automatically slid under the bed whenever he heard someone coming towards the room), and Tony went to open the door. Instead of greeting one of the hotel's staff, however, Tony opened the door for Tiberius Stone.

"Ty?" Tony asked dumbly.

Stone responded by shoving past Tony and letting himself into the room.

Bucky hadn't seen Stone in person in nearly two years, not since the man had attended MIT with Tony. But Stone was almost unrecognizable. It seemed like he had aged ten years, instead of two, and he walked differently than he used to. His gate was still mostly strut, but there was a sort of _awareness_ to the strut which set Bucky's teeth on edge.

"What are you doing here?" Tony asked as he closed the room's door and tracked Stone's movements with his eyes.

Bucky was tracking him, too, because Stone had pulled a small glass bottle and a syringe from an inside pocket of his jacket.

"This is what you need, right?" the man snapped, stabbing the needle into the top of the bottle and drawing some liquid into the barrel. Then, without warning, he jabbed the needle into Tony's leg.

"Ow!" Tony complained. "What the hell, jack-ass?"

After carelessly tossing the used syringe aside ( _so_ unsanitary, Bucky thought) and slamming the vial down on a nearby desk, Stone snapped, "Why the hell did you need that, Tony?"

"That was the antitoxin?" Stark asked. "Ty, I sent you that formula, like, five hours ago. That... It should have taken you _three weeks_ to make that. _How the hell_ did you already have some ready?"

Stone surged towards Tony, his body taut but his face expressionless. " _What happened?_ " he hissed.

"My house was gassed. Jarvis is dead."

Now, Stone looked positively _furious_. "Who was it? You know, I'm sure of it. Tell me who it was."

"Why do you even _care_?" Tony asked, backing away from the enraged man.

"I care because _Viastone_ created both that antitoxin _and_ the toxin it was used to combat. My people created those things _years_ ago. Christ, Tone! It was one of the projects tagged in your father's neat little _report_. It was never sent to mass production because some of the developers started making noise and there were too many _moral object_ _ions_ against using it, even _after_ we'd created the antitoxin. And what _existed_ of the toxin is supposed to be locked away in one of my _private vaults_. So what I want to know is _who the fuck did this_ , Tony, because after the little hissy fit you threw this summer, I made sure that people _forgot that it even existed_."

Tony stared at Stone for several long, still moments, and then he cursed. "Damnit. You were set up. You were set up to take the blame for my death. Me and Jarvis both. Because he knew there would be an investigation, and people would start sniffing around. He knew that someone would find a connection between you and the toxin, and then someone would notice your undoubtedly _shoddy_ attempt at a cover up, and you'd get blamed, and your company would be destroyed."

" _Who_?" Stone pressed. "Tell me, Tony."

His gaze even, Tony said, "Don't worry about it, Ty. I'll take care of it."

Stone laughed bitterly. "Tony, you've never been able to take care of anything in your _life_. And you're not mean enough to take care of _this_. So tell me who this was, and I'll do what you _can't_."

Now, Tony was just as enraged as Stone. " _Jarvis is dead_. Don't believe for one moment that I'm not going to kill the son of a bitch responsible for that."

Stone rolled his eyes and gave a derisive snort. "Yeah, he killed your nanny, so you can kill him. Fair's fair. But Tony, I am going to _destroy_ him."

Tony shook his head. "That's the thing, Ty. If you destroy him, you'll destroy me, as well, and I can't let you do that."

Stone responded to this statement by staring at Tony for several long seconds, then he said, "No way. It was _Stane_? Papa Bear, Worry Wart _Stane_? The man who carried you around on his shoulders and always made sure to have your favorite candy on his receptionist's desk and bailed us out of jail so you wouldn't have to face your parents-"

" _Yes, it was Stane_ ," Tony interrupted, his eyes briefly darting to where Bucky hid under the bed.

"That two-faced, lying, manipulative son of a bitch!" Stone roared.

Tony stepped away from the man, surprised by Stone's rage.

"That man has been organizing a merger between several of SI and Viastone's research departments. That son of a bitch was going to take the best parts of my company, frame me for _your murder_ , and destroy everything else!"

"Crap," Tony sighed. "And he was going to get away with it. If he hadn't botched up the attack and shown his hand..."

Stone groaned, collapsing into one of the chairs next to the door. "What the fuck are we going to do, Tone? He has us in a fucking choke hold..."

"No," Tony breathed, moving to stand in front of Stone where he sat. "No, he doesn't. He knows that we've been fighting, right?"

Stone snorted. "Tone, _everyone_ knows that we've been fighting, even if they don't know what we've been fighting about. Our battles have never been _discreet_."

"Okay," Tony said, nodding. "So... here's the thing... Stane doesn't know that _I know_ that he was the one to attack my house. He knows that I'll try to figure out what that toxin was, and he knows that the toxin can be linked to Viastone, so... I just need to convince him that I suspect that _you_ were responsible for the attack. And I can convince him that I want to fight back. It will be the perfect diversion while I start working at SI and looking into ways to take down Stane. He'll believe that I'm going after you, when really I'll be going after _him_."

Slowly, a wide, sharp toothed grin spread across Stone's face. "I knew there was a reason I kept you around," Stone said. "Well, other than for your sweet-"

Bucky almost sprung out from under the bed in order to strangle the man before he could finish his sentence, but Tony interupted Stone, first. "Fuck off, Ty," he said with a sigh. "Look, does anyone know you're here? Because if word gets back to Stane that we've been talking..."

Stone shook his head. "The moment I realized what it was you were asking me for, I went off grid and stole a car. If anyone goes looking for me, they'll think I blew off work to go to some strip clubs up in Canada."

Stark chuckled, but then his eyebrows rose. "Wait, you drove here from Chicago? You drove here in five hours?"

"It's been seven hours since you sent me that message, idiot," Stone mumbled as he stood. "I should get out of here and get to Canada. Give my story some credence, you know?" he said with a leer and a lewd twitch of his eyebrows. "What do you need me to do about Stane?"

"Right now? We just need to keep up our show, keep fighting. I'll call you for help if I need any."

Stone sighed in disappointment at his part in the plan, but shrugged. "Call me when it's time to finish him off. I want to watch."

Tony rolled his eyes and showed Stone to the door.

* * *

That night, Bucky crawled into the bed when Tony laid down for some sleep at about 2:00 a.m. The anti-toxin Stone had given him had worked almost instantly. Tony's headache had cleared, he was able to focus again, and the wound on his head had finally started scabbing over. So Bucky didn't hesitate to pull Tony into his arms and drape himself across the smaller man's chest. He wanted to kiss Tony into oblivion and make him forget everything that had happened in the last week, but... he couldn't muster more than a gentle press of lips against Tony's hair.

"Why do you trust Stone?" Bucky asked, because if he and Tony were going after Stane, he needed to understand why they weren't going after Stone, as well.

"It's not... I don't _trust_ him, really. Not... I just _know_ him."

"He's worse than Stane," Bucky pointed out.

Tony snorted. "No he's not. Stane made me like him. He made me trust him. He manipulated me so that I would do what he wanted and then move into a position where he'd be able to take advantage of me and kill me. Ty doesn't... He hasn't messed with my head like that in _years_. Not since before we went to MIT. He decided I was more valuable as a partner in crime than a pawn or an enemy, so he doesn't bullshit me anymore. Not where it counts, at least. Not like Obi. I mean, he's still one of the worst people in the world, but... It's... It's complicated."

"So explain it," Bucky demanded.

For a few moments, Tony was silent as he tried to find the words to explain himself. He tapped out a pattern against Bucky's shoulder as he thought, then gave a great, heaving sigh and threw his head back into his pillow.

"So there are lines in the sand, right?" Tony said slowly. "And Ty's parents crossed those lines time and time again, for _years_. And as a result, my father was able to compile a shit load of documentation which could destroy Ty, Ty's family, and _everything_ that his family has ever worked to create. And because I have all of that documentation, I have power over Ty. Except, the documentation that I have? That power? I have it, so it's possible for _other people_ to have it, too. Case in point, _Stane_ has some of that power, now. Which is intolerable to Ty."

"Well what's the difference?" Bucky pressed. "You can have the power, but Stane can't?"

"Yeah," Tony agreed. "I mean, yeah, Ty's upset that I have that power at all, but this arguing that we've been doing for the last few months? You know why he hasn't gone through with any of his threats and given the dirt he has on me to the press, right?"

Bucky shook his head.

"It's because there are lines in the sand, and Ty knows that he _can't_ be trusted _not_ to cross those lines. But if he _does_ cross those lines, he knows that his entire life could be destroyed. So I police him. I make sure that he doesn't cross any of those lines. But now Stane is playing in our yard, and he's fucking up our game. Ty and I? We've been doing this for _years_. This is just another one of our pissing contests, where we make a big mess but don't actually do any real damage. But Stane? He's not playing by our rules. He's not _policing_ anybody. He's trying to _control_ us."

Bucky was frowning hard. "But what if the roles were reversed in a couple of years? What if Stone had the power, and he was lording it over you?"

Tony shrugged, the motion lurching under Bucky's cheek. "He wouldn't do that. I told you, I'm the only friend he has in the world. If he looses me, he looses everything."

Bucky shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. Friends don't... friends don't treat each other the way Stone treats you."

Tony gave a sad, rueful grin. "Yeah, I know. I didn't figure that out until I met Rhodey, though, and by then... I don't understand people, you know? Jarvis always thought that it was because I was so intelligent, because I had so much stuff going on inside my head. But I think it's because of Ty. He was the only friend I had for such a long time, you know? And sometimes I think that maybe... he broke me, at some point. I don't understand people _because_ I understand Ty, and for the longest time, I thought that other people were just like him, except that _no one_ is like him... I got lucky with Rhodey. And Jarvis. And you."

Bucky hated the conversation they were having. Talking about Tiberius Stone and Obadiah Stane had been making his skin crawl. Except, Tony's last few words? They were just about everything that Bucky had ever wanted to hear. He'd known Tony for almost two years, and he'd been in love with him for over half of that time, and hearing that Tony, what? Liked him? Appreciated him? Thought of him as a friend, rather than the weirdo who had moved in under his bed after he had killed Tony's parents and who he sometimes had sex with? Whatever, whichever, it made Bucky's heart soar, and he had to work very, _very_ hard to keep his body from reacting in any way.

"I was lucky with you, too," Bucky murmured against Tony's cheek.

Tony responded by flashing Bucky his cockiest, most arrogant grin. "Yeah you were," he said.

However, after only a few moments, the grin fell away from Tony's face and he said, "You're going to have to play the game, too, now. You said that... When Obi attacked, you two made a deal?"

Bucky nodded. "He said he'd leave you alone as long as I got into your workshop and gave him anything you'd created."

Tony frowned, then said, "Well, you'll have to keep him convinced that you're trying to break into my workshop, then. You'll have to convince him that you haven't told me about the attack, and that-"

Bucky settled the palm of his hand over Tony's mouth in order to make him just shut up already. "Don't worry about me, Tony. I know how to deal with Stane," he assured. "I may not have played any... games myself, but I've had a front row seat for every big fight in Russia for the past forty-five years. I can handle myself. It's you I'm worried about. I don't want you going to Stark Industries by yourself. Stane has friends in the company, and you have none."

"That will change as soon as I start producing technology," Tony pointed out.

"The people at SI have been working for Stane for a long time, Tony. He's had sole control of the company for almost two years, and most of those people have known him longer than that. Even though half of the company rightfully belongs to you, it won't legally be yours for two more years, and everyone knows it. And honestly, there are a lot of people who won't be very happy that some kid is coming in and showing them up."

Tony sighed. "You're right. So what do we do?"

"Well," Bucky said slowly, "I hate the idea of you going into SI alone, and I hate the idea of sitting on my ass at home by myself while you're doing it. So I'll go in with you."

Tony's eyebrows rose. "So, what, you'll follow me around SI the same way you followed me around at MIT? Just a heads up, there's way more security at SI than there was on the campus. You're going to be caught on camera while you're doing back flips through stairwells."

With a grin, Bucky shook his head. "No, I mean I'll _go in with you_. As your body guard. Stane already knows about me, and he knows I intend to protect you in one way or another. He won't be surprised to see me. And I have the sleeve, now. I can keep my head down. And if anyone recognizes me, then, well... Fine. I don't want to live under beds for the rest of my life. Sleeping under them 's enough for me."

"And he'll believe that I think Ty was responsible for the attack, and he'll want me to _continue_ thinking that, so he won't kick up a fuss that you're around, especially if he thinks he has you in his pocket. Yeah, yeah, that could work. But, uh... Will Stane tell Hydra that you're still around, do you think?"

Bucky shook his head. "He was working with Hydra to kill your parents, but he isn't an agent of Hydra. He doesn't _report_ to them. And he thinks I'm going to deliver inside information about you to him, right? If he alerted Hydra, they'd come to retrieve me, and I'd be giving that information to _them_ , instead of _him_."

"So then we just have to make sure that no one _else_ will recognize you once you're out and about in the world again. Luckily, someone thought to make you an awesome sleeve so that you can wear proper clothes to conceal the single most identifying part of your body."

"Right. What do you think about me going blonde?"

Tony made a face. "We're trying to make you less noticeable, not more so. Nothing attracts more attention than poor fashion choices, and you'd look _horrible_ as a blond. Luckily for us, hats and sunglasses are the prerequisite uniform for security guards nowadays."

Bucky gave him a wide grin. "Of course. I'll fit right in."

Then, Bucky was surprised when Tony suddenly pouted. "But now... I won't get to have you all to myself anymore."

Bucky hummed, "I'll be your bodyguard. You'll have me plenty."

Tony slid a hand down Bucky's back and wiggled his eyebrows as he said, "And hey, we can have kinky office sex, now. I wonder how many of SI's Code of Conduct rules we can break."

"All of them, I'm sure," Bucky said with a grin as Tony's hand settled on his hip.

For a few moments, they were quiet and still.

They both had trouble getting to sleep in the hotel. There were other people, _strangers_ , in the building, and neither of them felt very safe in the unfamiliar room. It would be even worse once they went to live in New York City and began working for SI. They'd done a pretty good job of avoiding Obadiah Stane for the last year, and Bucky didn't like that they'd now be living in the same city as the man, and working in the same building.

As if he could read his mind, Tony sighed, "This is gonna suck."

* * *

They cleared their hotel room and closed up the Stark family home on a Thursday morning.

By this point, Tony had gone to Obadiah Stane and told the man that he believed that Tiberius Stone had attacked his home and killed Jarvis. He explained that he didn't feel safe in the house anymore, and he wanted revenge against Stone, so he would move to New York City and start working at the Stark offices in order to use SI's resources to investigate Viastone and Tiberius' business practices. Stane had been very understanding and compassionate about the whole thing, and he had agreed to set Tony up with a job in SI's R&D department.

Thus, Tony and Bucky were moving to an upscale apartment in New York City and leaving Ithaca behind.

Tony had been irritated the entire morning, and Bucky understood why. Even if they would be living in an apartment in the city, it wouldn't feel like home. It wouldn't even feel _safe_. They were leaving Tony's workshop and the many manor vaults. If Stane could get into the workshop or any of the vaults (if he even knew where the vaults _were_ ), the man wouldn't be manipulating Tony or blackmailing Bucky the way he was attempting to, so the projects hidden in the manor would be secure enough while Tony and Bucky were absent. Because the security they needed for all of those secrets, the security they needed for _themselves_ , didn't exist in the city.

Tony promised that the security they needed to ever feel _comfortable_ anywhere would exist in the near future, but not until he completed his work on his AI. The AI was _supposed_ to be completed by August, but _recent events_ had greatly impeded Tony's work, and Tony didn't have any foundation to install the AI into when he _did_ complete his project.

So they packed a bit of Tony's equipment and the most important of their personal possessions to take with them to the city.

"Cock sucking, motherfucking, god damned, Obadiah Stane," Tony hissed as he and Bucky started driving away from the manor.

Bucky hummed in agreement.

Neither of them couldn't stand the idea of living in the manor anymore. Not after a toxin had been released into the house. Not after Jarvis had died. And Tony _hated_ that he was being driven from his home. He almost, _almost_ wanted to stay. It would be a form of rebellion, of standing his ground and saying "Fuck you" to Stane and his manipulations. But living in that house without Jarvis, without his parents, would probably drive him insane.

"This isn't happening again," Tony promised as they pulled out of the drive and onto the main roads. "We'll never be chased out of our own home again. Not by anyone, and not for anything."

"Okay," Bucky easily agreed. Because yeah, even though he and Tony were essentially walking head-first into the lion's den by moving to the city and into SI, it felt like they were running away.

Tony had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, and his eyes were pointedly fixed on the road ahead of him. Bucky wanted to turn around and give the manor one last look -- he knew that as they drove up the next hill and around a bend in the road, the structure would be visible for just a moment through the trees. However, he decided that if Tony wasn't looking back, then he wouldn't look back, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plot -- so, so much plot. If anything was confusing, please give me a heads up. I doubt I'll write many chapters that are this... involved. A lot of stuff happened in a very short period of time, but it was a fun chapter to write.
> 
> And again, if anything seems awkward or confusing, tell me so that I can clean it up. I've read and reread this chapter and edited it so many times that I feel like I could recite every version of this chapter in its entirety from memory, and the different edits sometimes get confused in my head. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you liked it! Tell me what you thought!


	5. Off to Work We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony Stark enters the workforce.

Tony Stark entered the workforce with a bang. Within his first four days at SI, his product designs were responsible for SI acquiring seven mufti-million dollar contracts with the U.S. military (awesome), he started three fires in the R&D labs (oops), and he made the headlines in twenty different countries when he told one of SI's foreign investors to go fuck themselves (worth it).

"Cripes," Bucky muttered as he and Tony made their way into SI headquarters on Tony's fifth day of work (so Friday). Bucky had to shield Tony with his body so that they could fight their way through the throng of press outside the front entrance, dozens of people crowding them and calling for Tony's attention. "You would have needed to hire a bodyguard regardless of the situation with Stane," Bucky muttered.

Tony was very proud of himself for the whole thing. Over the last few years, he had missed this. He had missed the attention, the excitement, he had missed doing something as simple as speaking his mind and then watching people fall all over themselves in their confusion and affront.

 _Yeah_ , Tony thought. _I'm a big deal. I know it, and you should know it, too_.

The flashes of the cameras and the yelling of the reporters instantly faded away as Tony and Bucky entered the lobby. Bucky still walked almost too close to Tony, though. At least, too close according to the standard bodyguard/employee rule book. Usually, bodyguards were supposed to be seen but not _seen_. They were meant to be a shadow and a threat, not a companion. But Tony didn't give two flying fucks about rule books. He cared more about the fact that he had hardly interacted with any people other than Bucky and Jarvis in the last two years, and he was eternally grateful that at least one of those people could be by his side during this commotion.

Also, he was glad to keep Bucky close. He'd grown kind of attached to the man over the last few weeks, and he was very possessive of his stuff. His man. Whatever. And besides, Bucky had been kind of tense and twitchy since they'd started at SI. He didn't like being in such close contact with a bunch of people he didn't know, and Tony wanted to be nearby just in case Bucky... well, just in case.

Although when Tony really thought about it, he realized that Buck had been tense and twitchy ever since Jarvis had died and they had moved out of the manor (the very thought of which still made Tony's stomach turn). It had been bad enough when the two of them had been crammed into the hotel in Ithaca along with as many of Tony's electronics as he could fit in the room, and it had been even worse for the last week that they had been living in an apartment in the city. Bucky didn't do well with cramped, noisy living spaces anymore. Not after living in the manor for two years, where there was privacy and space. Tony found that he could sympathize. Yeah, he'd missed the excitement of living in the big city, but he missed working in private more. He'd left his workshop behind in Ithaca, and now he simply wasn't comfortable working in a space that he hadn't designed and secured himself.

Especially when there were a bunch of other people _touching my things_.

Those three lab fires? Well those had been the result of people wandering into Tony's work space while Tony was in his head and working out some new specs. He had never been crowded by other people while working before - not at home, when he and his father were occasionally in the workshop at the same time, and not at MIT, where he'd had a private workshop of his very own. So what was this crap about ten engineers having work stations in the same room as him?

So when in a meeting that lovely Friday afternoon with the Board of Directors and Obadiah Stane, Tony almost groaned aloud in relief when one of the board members said, "After the events of the last few days, we think that it would be best if you kept out of the public eye for a while. We thought that maybe you would like to work out of the research facilities in California for the next few months, just until the bad press from your last... interaction with Chairman Vargas blows over."

"Are you talking about the office in Malibu?" Tony asked. "Because yeah, I totally want a good reason to go to Malibu."

The man twitched at Tony's statement, but nodded. "The facilities there are far better equipped for your research, and the offices are near one of the company's primary manufacturing plants. You would be able to work directly with the product engineers -"

"Yeah, great, whatever. You had me at California," Tony interrupted, standing. "If you gents could excuse me, I need to go and find myself the hottest piece of beachfront property my money can buy. It was great working with you, can't wait to see you again when I own the company in two years. Bye!"

In the hall, Bucky muttered, "Just like that, we're going to California?" as he followed Tony to the labs, where Tony intended to pack his things (because yeah, despite the overcrowded workshop, he'd already made himself at home) and then get the fuck out of the city.

Tony nodded. "Just like that," he agreed. "Which, yeah, this will actually work out great. We'll still be working at SI, so we'll be able to keep an eye on Stane, except he won't be at the offices in Malibu, so we won't run the risk of stumbling into the guy at meetings and having to exchange pleasantries with him every fucking day. And since there are some weapons plants near by, we'll actually be able to keep an eye on what all is coming out of them, and what exactly is going into them, too. Plus, that beachfront property? Yeah, I'm thinking we could build a new house, make it the single most secure building in the world, and settle down there for a while." What went unsaid was that their four days in the New York offices had been more than enough time to set up extensive surveillance on Stane and the employees whom he favored most. However, before Tony and Bucky could reach the R&D floors of the building, they were intercepted by Stane.

"Tones!" he called down the hall, taking long, even strides to catch up with them. "Hey, thanks for agreeing with the Board on this. I know it's a hassle, but things will blow over once we've soothed Chairman Vargas' feathers and sent him packing home."

Tony carefully manipulated his smile so that it was easy and unconcerned, rather than sharp and mean, because he was _so_ going to take Stane down.

"No problem," he assured the man. "Especially since, you know, the Viastone offices in California are in San Fransisco. It'll be nice to have four hundred miles separating my house from Stone's, instead of four city blocks."

Stane replied to this statement with an understanding, concerned nod. "You sure you don't need my help with him, Tony? I have sway with a few people in Viastone. If you need any information-"

Tony really, really wanted information on who exactly Stane was friendly with in Ty's company, and he itched to say yes on the off chance that Stane might give him those names, but Stane was too good at this game to let information like that slip, so Tony gave the man a dismissive wave. "Thanks, Obi, but I know how to deal with Ty. And I really don't want to risk getting you caught up in this. After what happened to Jarvis..."

It didn't hurt to simply speak the man's name any more, but Tony was almost overcome by the sense of longing which washed over him whenever he remembered that Jarvis wasn't around anymore. The man had taken care of Tony his entire life, and with Jarvis gone, Tony constantly felt like he was doing a complicated trapeze routine without a net to catch him if he fell. Hopefully, that feeling wouldn't last for much longer. From the instant that the Board had told Tony that they wanted him to go to Malibu, ideas for blueprints and schematics had been racing through his mind. If he could build a house from scratch, to his exact specifications, he could instal far more circuitry into the house than he would have been able to put into the manor. The manor was old, built of plaster and wood and inferior materials over half a century ago. But if he built something using concrete and steel, the foundation would be capable of supporting far more hardware than the manor ever could. The possibilities...

Tony was abruptly forced from his musings when Stane _put his hand on him_.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Tony," the man was saying as he gently squeezed Tony's shoulder. "I know you cared for him a great deal. And I understand why you wouldn't want something like that to happen to anyone else. But I care for you, too. You're all the family I have left in the world, and I want to help protect you, too."

"I..." Tony was choking on his emotion, his _rage_. He couldn't speak or move beyond the urge to _get that man away from me_ and the chant of _liar, liar, liar_.

Behind him, Bucky subtly set his hand on the small of Tony's back, and Tony took a deep, long breath. It felt as if he was a wall, and Bucky was bracing him so that he could remain tall, solid, and firm.

Finally, Tony said, "I understand, Obi. But I have to do this myself. I'm..." Forcing a grin onto his face which would effectively end the conversation, Tony said, "I'm going to go pick a few things up from the labs, shoot one of those pyron guns one more time, and see if I can't terrorize a couple interns for a little longer before it's time to hit the road. I'll see you around, Obi."

With a nod and one more reluctant, concerned frown, Stane nodded and stepped away. "Take care of yourself, Tony." Then, turning his eyes to Bucky for the first time since the conversation had begun, he said, "And you be sure to take care of him, too."

"Of course, sir," Bucky easily replied.

Tony _had_ intended to cause a bit more trouble before starting for Malibu, but after his conversation with Stane, not even the idea of rearranging and cluttering up the office of the lead R &D researcher (who was notorious for the compulsive organization of his office, and a total jackass to boot) could lighten his mood.

* * *

 

When Tony and Bucky boarded their plane to Malibu, it was with DUM-E and Javis' AI packed into the cargo hold. Jarvis' AI (known as JARVIS in Tony's head, because his grief was erring on the wrong side of _appropriate_ ) took up a massive amount of space. The computer and his processors would have their own floor in Tony and Bucky's new home. Once he was up and running, then maybe, sometimes, it would seem like Jarvis was still around.

Tony was making calls before the plane took off from JFK, and by the time the plane was flying out of New York's airspace, he had purchased a lovely piece of cliff side land, and the ground would be broken to make way for his and Bucky' new home in a matter of days (something like this would usually take months, but he was Tony Stark, and he'd just signed seven multi-million dollar contracts for SI, so he could afford to build a house very, very quickly).

"Do you want your own room?" Tony idly asked as he was working out building schematics during the flight.

They were on one of SI's private jets, so he was lounging on a rather comfortable couch with his feet in Bucky's lap while the other man looked over a report of the security measures already in place at the offices in Malibu. Tony's shoes were off, and the thumb of Bucky's metal hand tickled Tony's skin just the littlest bit as Bucky ran it back and forth over the arch of his foot. It was almost, _almost_ distracting, but not distracting enough to pull him away from his schematics and start something. And besides, Tony had work to do. He'd introduce Bucky to the mile high club _next time_ they were in a private jet.

Tony didn't have any sort of background with architecture, so it was taking him longer than it should to find a good balance between the function and form of his designs. His and Bucky's home would be a highly functional building, and Tony didn't want the building's form to resemble a fortress belonging to some villain from a bad cartoon. So, yeah, it was taking a little while longer to work out the building's schematics than it would ever take Tony to figure out a machine's schematics.

In answer to Tony's question, Bucky immediately answered, "No. I want to stay in your room."

Tony hummed, absently sketching out a design for his bed. It would be attached to the wall via a cement bed frame (a slab which jutted out from the wall, really), and it would be simple enough up top with a large, plush mattress and soft, fluffy pillows. But underneath, he thought he'd make an alcove in the floor five or six inches deeper than the rest of the room's flooring, so that there would be more room underneath than what there would be under a normal bed. Bucky would have some space to move around without bumping into the underside of the bed (not that he ever did, but still). And maybe Tony'd put some grooves in the wall, to act as a sort of headboard/cubby space. Bucky could put a reading light under the bed, and he'd have a place to keep those ridiculous westerns he was always reading. And maybe Tony'd add a small computer panel on the underside of the cement frame so that Bucky could check the house's security feeds whenever he was feeling paranoid but didn't want to get out from underneath his covers. "Should we have skylights? No, no, don't want anyone taking pictures of the inside of our house using a satellite. Although, if they were tinted or one way..."

"What about the pool?" Bucky asked.

"Huh?" Tony asked, looking up from his doodles.

"Will people be able to take pictures of the pool with a satellite?" Bucky asked.

And damn, Tony hadn't thought of that.

"We could have an indoor pool. Or a covered pool," Tony said after a moment.

"Covered," Bucky decided. "And the house should have windows. A lot of windows." Well, alright. Tony didn't really have a preference one way or the other. As long as his workshop (which would be underground) had all of the tools and materials he could ever want or need in it, the rest of the house could be a cardboard box, for all he cared. So what Bucky wanted, Bucky got.

* * *

The transition into the Malibu offices were much smoother than Tony's first few days in New York. Tony knew that Stane probably had people in the offices keeping an eye on him, but Tony and Bucky were able to relax tremendously when they weren't worried about running into Stane himself around every other corner.

Plus, the offices in New York were just that: offices. The research facilities had been miniscule, and Tony had a feeling they were only in the building so that SI could show off their Engineers Hard at Work to potential investors.

The labs in Malibu were where the real fun happened, and Tony was given a private workshop (although he still didn't trust that it was secure, so he didn't work on any real projects in the building, SI business only). While waiting for the ground to break on his and Bucky's new home, Tony relished in his new workspace and the shiny new toys he had to play with. For the first time in years, he had the opportunity to actually build some of the designs he'd created while living in the manor, where he hadn't dared to have any real materials delivered while he was supposedly only working on building computers.

It was very soothing, to really _build_ things again, and Tony may have been a little overzealous during his first week in the SI Malibu offices.

Which was why Tony and Bucky were in the office until nearly three in the morning on a Saturday. Tony couldn't wait until until the house was built, because then he could do work there, in his own workshop, in secured privacy, and Bucky wouldn't need to stay up with him. The man would be able to sleep on his own schedule again, instead of Tony's. Bucky didn't complain about Tony's strange hours, of course. The man could function on little to no sleep. He was designed to function on little to no sleep. But it didn't seem right that he had to alter his habits for Tony while Tony was binge inventing in the offices.

Tony thought that he and Bucky were the only two people left in the building at three in the morning (especially since it had been Friday, pre midnight. Tony belonged to a rare class of people whom believed that a fun Friday night meant rockin out to science, but even the nerds employed by SI had better things to do with their nights and weekends), but as they left the building and headed for the car park, Tony saw that someone else had exited the building only a few moments ahead of them.

When the person heard the doors closing behind Tony and Bucky, they turned at the noise and paused. Tony saw that it was a man, and he was wearing a janitor's uniform. When he saw Tony and Bucky following behind him, he stopped walking so that the pair could catch up. When the man stopped to wait for them, Bucky immediately became tense, and Tony realized that if someone wanted to break into SI or attack him, dressing as a janitor would be a good way to go unnoticed.

However, as they drew near the man, he asked, "You Tony Stark? You're what all the fuss has been about?"

"Of course," Tony replied, coming to a stop in front of the elderly man. Tony glanced at the employee badge clipped to the man's collar, and saw that his name was Carson Smith.

"Working late, Carson?"

The man shrugged. "Gave the floors a double coat of varnish this evening."

Which meant the man had created extra work for himself in order to stay late.

He confirmed Tony's theory by stating, "I don't have clearance for the R&D floors. Was hoping I'd catch you on your way out, but my wife's sick and I have to get the kids to their soccer games tomorrow morning and couldn't really afford to hang around any longer."

"Well, you certainly have my attention now. What is it you needed to speak with me about?"

The man gave both Bucky and Tony long, searching glances, and then, his voice nearly a whisper, he said, "Just thought you might be interested to know that seven offices on the third floor were cleared out the day before you got here, and I haven't seen the people who worked in them for the past week. Heard your transfer from New York was last minute, and thought it was kind of funny."

Tony frowned, because the third floor? Those were administrative offices. He tried thinking of which departments were down there – Human Resources was on the third floor, there were a few offices for marketing, a few others for product packaging designs, a couple lawyers, some accountants –

"The people you haven't seen, were they lawyers? Or accountants?" Tony asked.

"Accountants," the man answered quietly. "I don't really know what most of them did, but I know one of them had a lot of documents on his desk which were written in Chinese."

And why the fuck would a company that made weapons for the U.S. military be exchanging money with China? Especially when SI prided themselves on their American made products and materials?

"Alright. Yeah. Thanks for the heads up, Carson. And hey, if you find yourself suddenly and suspiciously unemployed, call me at this number and I'll help you out, yeah?" Tony handed the man one of his business cards with his personal number on it. The man took it with a relieved nod, then hurried towards his car.

"You think he could get in trouble for talking to us?" Bucky asked once they were in their car and headed home.

"I don't know," Tony sighed. "It depends on how many cameras and microphones there are inside of that courtyard. If there are only cameras, I'm sure he'll be fine. He was just another employee welcoming me to the job. And if there were microphones... I don't think he could get in _too_ much trouble. He didn't have any real information. He didn't give me any names, and he had no details of any criminal activity..."

"But you still gave him your number?" Bucky asked.

Tony nodded. "Just in case," he said with a sigh.

* * *

 Luckily, it took only a few weeks for the bones of Tony and Bucky's house to be built (oh, the glories of modern materials). After the success of Tony's first few weeks at SI, no one much minded when he and Bucky took off two entire months from the office in order to finish most of the construction themselves.

They spent their days working on the house, and they spent their nights goofing off in the RV that they were living out of until the house was finished (Tony and Bucky both agreed that a mildly luxurious RV parked on their new property would be more comfortable than staying in a hotel for any longer).

Tony took care of the electrical components of the home while Bucky put up most of the dry walling and built the house's safe rooms (after inspecting Tony's blueprints for the building, Bucky insisted that there be four, as well as one "decoy" safe room. Tony would tease the man for his paranoia, except...). They built the vaults, next, then the kitchen (Bucky was already sick of eating take-out every night, and he wanted to learn to cook. Tony may have gone a little overboard while shopping for any supplies and appliances the man could possibly want).

Tony had a few people come in for detail work and decorating, but mostly, he and Bucky built the house themselves. They both liked the work – Tony made JARVIS bigger and badder than even he had initially thought possible, and Bucky liked doing work with his hands.

“Makes me feel more normal,” he told Tony as he was covering JARVIS' circuitry with dry wall and some metal paneling. “I worked a lot of odd jobs before the war, when Steve and I were living together and he was going to school for art. The carpentry jobs were always my favorite. Always figured I'd get into construction when I came back home.”

“Better late than never,” Tony told him, critically eying Bucky's work to make sure that his AI's circuitry wasn't damaged by the soldering materials or a nail gun. “I especially like the part where we don't have a bunch of strangers in our home looking at my stuff or memorizing the layout of the rooms.”

Bucky hummed. “I bet the bunch of strangers like the part where they don't have a paranoid billionaire standing behind them and scrutinizing their work. If I wasn't already used to someone watching my every move and criticizing my every action, you would have driven me insane by now, Tony.”

“It's a good thing I'm not bothering you, then,” Tony said, blatantly ignoring Bucky's not so subtle hint to give him some space.

“I didn't know that Captain America went to art school,” he said after a moment. Because if he wasn't going to give Bucky some space, the least he could do was distract Bucky from his overbearing presence for a few moments.

Bucky chuckled at Tony's obvious attempt at a distraction and said, “That's because Captain America didn't go to art school. Steve did, before the war and before the serum. He wasn't just small, like he was in those comic books you showed me. He was really sick all the time, too. He couldn't hold down a job because he missed so many days, and he couldn't work at anything that kept him on his feet for too long. Drawing was all he had. He was real good, too. He actually drew a few posters for the recruitment centers when the war first started up. It was one of his first paying jobs.”

“Huh,” Tony said, and was dismayed to find that instead of distracting Bucky, Bucky had in fact distracted him. Instead of watching Bucky's work with the dry walls, he was now just watching Bucky as he talked about his best friend, the legendary man who hadn't been so legendary when Bucky first knew him.

“We had a deal worked out,” Bucky continued. “That punk was so stubborn and prideful, he initially declined his spot in the program. The art program, I mean. He was talented, knew what he was doing, and he'd gotten a scholarship. But even with the scholarship, he couldn't afford school. We were already living together, and I was working pretty steady. I had some savings, so I offered to put up the rest of his tuition. The jerk flat out refused, didn't want to live off of money he hadn't earned himself. So I went over his head, went down to the college, and paid for his first semester. You should have seen how angry he was when he found out. Steve sent himself into an asthma attack, he was yelling so much. But the deposit was non refundable, and wasting money was worse than borrowing money, so we worked out an agreement that I'd put him through school and he'd become the best damn artist in New York, and he'd pay me back with interest after he got famous.”

Bucky looked good, Tony thought. It was a warm day, so he was working without a shirt (yum). His boots and jeans were dirty and dusty, he wore only one glove on his flesh hand, and there was a smudge of dry walling chalk which trailed from his temple into his hair (which was also strangely yum). And as he talked about his friend Steve, as he remembered living with the man in an attic which had only one room, a finicky stove, and a leaky ceiling, Bucky had a small, sweet smile on his face which Tony had rarely seen. Bucky never talked about the good times, Tony realized. The war and his time with Hydra usually monopolized the man's thoughts, and Tony had to wonder how often Bucky was able to remember that yes, there had been a time _before,_ when he had been happy. Tony wondered how many of those memories Bucky had recovered.

 _No matter_ , Tony decided. _He'll just have to make some new happy memories with me_.

Slowly, Tony reached out to Bucky, who was kneeling on the floor and placing a few last nails into a slab of dry wall. He ran his fingers over the back of Bucky's neck and into his dusty hair.

A hard days work looked good on Bucky, Tony thought.

Bucky, who had been in the middle of telling Tony a story about one of the disastrous double dates he had talked Steve into, stopped speaking mid sentence and turned to look at Tony with a raised eyebrow. Something in Tony's expression must have tipped him off to Tony's thoughts, because a moment latter, he grinned Tony's _favorite_ grin.

“Not in a construction zone,” he told Tony, tapping a box of nails with his boot to demonstrate his point.

“The concrete in the bedroom should be dry by now. We can bring the blankets and pillows in from the RV and officially christen the house.”

“Deal,” Bucky agreed. Bucky went to fetch the blankets and Tony tracked down some champagne and lube. They probably wouldn't get any more work done today, and they'd be behind tomorrow. Their schedule for the next month would probably be thrown off.

 _Worth it_ , Tony thought.

* * *

 “You sure about this?” Bucky asked, a frown on his face and an uneasy hunch to his shoulders. And Tony understood, really he did. Bucky hadn't taken it well when Tony informed him that his AI would be modeled after Jarvis in more than just spirit.

“Yeah, I'm sure,” Tony answered, and he flipped the final switch.

The light flickered, the servers hummed to life, and a low, quiet humm filled the room. And just like that, the house was alive.

“Hello, JARVIS,” Tony called.

It was a full thirty seconds before JARVIS replied, “Good morning Mr. Stark, Mr. Barnes. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Is there anything I can do for you at this time?”

Grinning, Tony said, “Don't worry about us just yet. How are you? Run a full systems check and tell me how you're doing. If everything goes alright today, we'll see about getting you the full hook up tomorrow. Internet, satellite feed, the whole shebang. Sound good?”

“Yes, sir. Running full systems check. Estimated time until completion: three hours, twenty-seven minuets, and thirteen seconds.”

“Awesome. Bucky, want to help me check the interface systems on the main level?”

Bucky hummed. “I'm going to check the gate and perimeter first.”

“Entrance and perimeter system scan prioritized. Estimated time until completion: twenty minutes and thirty seconds,” JARVIS informed them. “Your assistance in testing the gate's entry codes and perimeter motion sensors would be greatly appreciated, Mr. Barnes.”

“Yeah, alright,” Bucky allowed, picking up one of the radios Tony had designed to communicate with JARVIS when they were outside the house, just until he could work out a com device which was a little more subtle and had a little more finesse.

Tony grinned. There was nothing he wanted more than for his A.I. and his boyfriend (His partner? His significant other? His soul ma- Okay, clearly they had to assign some term to themselves, because Tony was starting to get sappy) to get along. Bucky and JARVIS would be running point on the house's security together, and if Bucky didn't like the way JARVIS did things, Tony didn't know what he'd do (except that wasn't true, because Tony had put years of work into JARVIS, and if Bucky didn't get off on this AI's security protocols, Tony would probably lock himself in his new workshop for a month so that Bucky wouldn't see him cry).

On his way out the door, Bucky paused to press his lips to Tony's temple and promise him, “After the perimeter and interface systems are all squared off, we'll celebrate.”

“Awesome,” Tony agreed, because the mattress for the top bed and the mat (Bucky said it counted as a mattress, but Tony argued that it was so thin and stiff that Bucky might as well sleep on bare concrete. Bucky made a tasteless joke about princesses and peas) for under the bed had both arrived last week, and it would take at least a month of activity to properly wear them in, Tony had decided. When Bucky was gone, Tony told JARVIS, “Give me a heads up when you're finished with your run through. I have some house cleaning I could use your help with.”

“Of course, Sir,” JARVIS responded.

* * *

Tony decided that Carson Jameson deserved a big fat bonus. Obi and his people had done a decent job of erasing the evidence of their dirty accountants, but between Jameson's tip, nearly 900 hours of “liberated” security footage which Bucky had nicked from the security offices, and JARVIS' brand new, state of the art video enhancement and facial recognition software, Tony had names. Jameson had only known about seven cleared offices, but JARVIS found an additional five employees who had mysteriously disappeared from SI's offices the day before Tony flew into Malibu. Five additional employees who had no records of ever actually being employed by Stark Industries, but who did have records as mercenaries or contract security officers outside the US.

When Bucky saw pictures of the additional five employees, he pointed at one man and said, “I know him. He's Swedish.”

“Hydra Swedish?” Tony asked. Bucky shook his head. “He knew people, though. I'd bet my right arm that he's the one who introduced Stane to his Russian contacts.” Despite the seriousness of the situation, Tony had to grin, because with all this talk of betting and right arms, Tony realized that Bucky was starting to think like him. “Alright, JARVIS,” Tony called. “You have eyes on Stane in the main offices, yeah?”

“Yes, sir. All suspicious activity and illegal SI dealings are being stored in the file marked '99 Problems.'”

“Perfect. Thanks, J!”

* * *

It would do, Tony decided. The house still... looked funny, but there was only so much he could do to manipulate the form without loosing function, so... he'd just have to make sure that this particular architectural style was labeled “futuristic,” and that it became _a thing_.

Bucky seemed to like it fine, anyways. On their first night in the house, Bucky had broken in the kitchen while making dinner (spaghetti, with sauce from a can. Bucky wanted to learn to cook, meaning that he wasn't capable of anything special _just_ yet).

The next morning, he went for a jog among the hills and cliffs surrounding the house, the workout ending with a dive into the pool. Tony made breakfast, the meal consisting of burnt eggs, burnt bacon, burnt toast, and orange juice (made from concentrate, which apparently Tony hadn't properly stirred into the water, so there were chunks of still slightly frozen juice mix in their cups). And when Bucky got out of the pool, he ate every bite.

After breakfast, Tony went to his sparkly new workshop where he spent the day calibrating all of his new toys to his exact specification and then wearing in the grips of his tools so that they would comfortably fit in his hand (which could only really be done through constant, repetitive use, so a lot of fun things were built that day). Bucky wandered in and out. Sometimes with a book in hand, sometimes with a snack for Tony, sometimes with a requested modification to JARVIS (“Could you make it so that he only talks to me in the shower if there's an emergency?”).

That night, Bucky made ravioli for dinner (also from a can). And during dinner, Tony noticed the little things, like how their dishes from the morning and the night before were still piled in the kitchen sink, and Bucky had left the video cassettes in the living room a mess (he'd probably been looking for Fatal Attraction, which Tony had left on the stainless steel coffee table instead of organizing it with the other videos, since he knew Bucky wanted to see it). Tony had left a number of small machine parts, as well as some pliers, on the island between the kitchen and dining room. Then, there were five pairs of shoes piled next to the door, both Bucky's and Tony's.

“Huh,” Tony muttered. “The place already looks lived in.”

“Course it does,” Bucky answered. “We've been livin' here, Tony.”

“Huh,” Tony said again. “Neat.”

* * *

“Okay,” Bucky told Tony. “JARVIS is alright.”

Tony blinked, distracted from the information he was pouring over on one of the computers set into the wall near the kitchen island. He and Bucky were going over the initial information gathered by their bugs in the New York offices. JARVIS had been kind enough to organize the information into subgroups, then he prioritized them.

There was nothing solid. Stane wasn't stupid enough to leave hard evidence lying around Stark Industries. But there were good hints, concrete leads, and a shit ton of information which could be used as supportive evidence.

Bucky continued. “As always, his work is impeccable.”

And Tony exhaled. JARVIS had been up and running for a good two months, and for the entirety of those two months, Bucky had been uneasy about the system. He never said anything, not about JARVIS' name, not about JARVIS' synthesized British voice, and not about the “sass” protocols which Tony added code to almost every day. So no, he never complained. But he was uneasy. Sometimes, when JARVIS spoke, his body tensed, and his eyes would dart around the room in the same way they would when he forgot who he was, and where he was, and what his mission was. It always made Tony second guess himself. It made him second guess JARVIS. And so to hear Bucky say that? Well that was pretty awesome.

* * *

 

Six months into their new life in Malibu, and two months after their house had been completed, Bucky requested that they add a gym into the house. Which, yeah. It wasn't like they didn't have five guest suits, a movie hall (with a ten foot tall projection screen and a comfortable collection of recliners for optimal viewing pleasure), a gallery (full of priceless art taken from his parent's collection stored in Ithica), two libraries, and a sun room (which was apparently a fancy name for a greenhouse. Except, neither Bucky nor Tony were known for their green thumbs, so they mostly used the space as a sauna).

Bucky wanted to convert one of the guest suits, since they didn't exactly have guests to put up in the guest suits. Tony argued with a resounding cry of, “Those rooms are for guests! We will have guests over, you know! Where's Rhody supposed to stay when he's state side? Where's Ty supposed to sleep when he comes over and drinks himself silly while helping me plot against Stane? And hey! You're out and about in the world again! You'll be the most popular guy on the block soon enough, and then your buddies will be in and out of those rooms all the time! We'll have to install revolving doors to help control traffic flow-”

The argument had ended with Bucky kissing Tony in order to shut him up.

Then, Tony put in an argument for converting the gallery. “We never go in there! I've seen it before, you've seen it before, and after you've seen it once, then why the hell do you need to see it again?”

“Your mother spent twenty years building her collection,” Bucky reminded him. “And you brought her favorite pieces from Ithica because you couldn't stand the idea of packing them into the basement. Packing them into the sub levels in Malibu would be the same as packing them into the basement in Ithica.”

Tony hated it when Bucky did that thing where he reasoned reasonably. So Tony said, “The sun room, then.”

“If we got rid of the sun room, then we'd have to build an actual sauna. Do you know how to build a sauna, Tony? Because I don't-”

“I'm sure I could find a manual somewhere.”

“Which means we'd have to get contractors in here to make an addition to the house, and I really don't want strangers in our house, Tony. Unless you want to convert the sun room to a gym and one of the guest rooms into a massive sauna-”

“We need the guest rooms!” Tony declared, and Bucky conceded instead of driving Tony into another “we have friends, of course we have friends,” rant. So they converted the movie room into a gym. Which was fine, because they never used the movie room. After all, there was a TV in the living room, and another one in the bedroom. Why would they use the movie room when they can see the TV in the living room from the table where they ate, and they can see the TV in the bedroom from the bed. So. The movie room conversion into a gym was a go. And shortly after the gym was established, Tony decided that it was his favorite room in the house. Because Bucky, with his shirt off, his metal arm in plain view, and his hair slicked with sweat, was Tony's favorite Bucky.

And whenever Bucky caught him staring, he always sent Tony a cocky grin and asked, “Want to go a round?”

And Tony always responded with a resounding, “Yes. Yes, please!”

They _did_ actually spar. Kind of. Bucky's abilities far outstripped Tony's hand to hand combat skills. Tony only ever landed punches when Bucky let him. So, point one for Bucky. Point two was Bucky's sweaty, shirtless state. Between his well muscled flesh arm, rock hard abs, and the sinewy muscles in his back, Tony was far too distracted to ever give any real attention to the fight.

Point three was that metal arm. It was the arm Hydra had fitted for him, and whenever Tony saw it, his mind automatically wandered to the half-finished arm he had stashed away in his workshop. In place of a red star on the bicep, there was a shallow impression of Stark Industries' identifying logo, two sharp, clean lines, one long, lone short, one horizontal, while the shorter line was set at a forty-five degree angle to the point of the horizontal line.

Or, well, it _would_ be the SI logo, after Stane was out and the company was given a massive makeover. SI's current logo was a hold-over from the sixties, outdated, and remarkably similar to Steak'n'Shake's signature logo (and wasn't it embarrassing that Tony got a craving for burgers whenever he walked into work?).

The lines on Bucky's new metal arm wouldn't be painted. Tony didn't want the logo to be that noticeable. But he wanted it on the arm. Because he was possessive and needy and he wanted a constant reminder to Bucky, the world, and himself, that Bucky belonged to him. Which, yeah, now that he thought of it, he should probably reign that in before he did something to really piss Bucky off. But Tony thought it likely that he could get away with this one _tiny_ act of extreme possessive narcissism.

“You gonna fight, or you gonna keep throwing wide swings so you can get a look at my ass when I dodge?” Bucky teased one afternoon after he'd spent a good hour teasing Tony with jabs and lazy kicks while they “spared” on the mats.

“Fighting's overrated. Especially when we could be doing _other_ strenuous activities,” Tony shot back.

Bucky responded by coming at Tony with a high kick. As Tony moved to duck, Bucky compensated for the movement by lowering his leg and hooking his knee around Tony's neck, knocking Tony to the mat. From there, it was only a matter of getting all of their clothes off and grabbing the lube from where they stashed it next to their water bottles and post “workout” energy bars.

Tony love, love, _loved_ sex with Bucky. Probably because he was _in_ love with the guy, or something. But also because of the way Bucky littered his face and lips with kisses, then latched onto Tony's neck with teeth. And also because of the way Bucky moaned whenever Tony sucked at his fingers, or his nipples, or his dick. And the way Bucky stared at Tony when he entered him, and Bucky's strength when he held Tony, and the way he didn't let Tony go after they were finished. Not for a few minutes, at least.

“Christ, we need to find a way to properly clean this place,” Tony told Bucky as he made made himself comfortable against Bucky's chest.

And Bucky snorted. “I'm not paying someone to wipe our cum off of the mats,” he argued. “Tony, that's just...”

“I was thinking more along the lines of _making_ something to clean our sweat off the mats. Bucky, the gym is starting to smell like a public gym.”

“Tony, you've never been to a public gym in your life.”

“I had to attend gym class when I was at boarding school, though. Same difference.”

When Bucky hummed and started shifting in a clear indication that he was going to start getting up and cleaning up, Tony draped himself more fully across Bucky's chest in a feeble attempt to keep him pinned.

“What?” Bucky asked. “You were just complaining about the smell in here. Come take a shower with me.”

“No,” Tony (not) whined.

“What, you want me dirty and sweaty?”

“Well, why not?”

“Seriously?”

“What, you haven't noticed? Whenever you've been working out and your hair is pushed off of your face, you look like you did in those old films. The ones we pulled out of my father's workshop, you remember?”

Bucky burst out laughing. “Seriously? You get off on the forties soldier look?”

“I get off on _your_ forties soldier look. You have to admit, the Howling Commandos looked good on you.”

Tony watched the other man's face closely, looking for Buck's reaction to the mention of the Howling Commandos. Bucky didn't speak about them often. He didn't speak about any aspect of his past very often. But Tony still remembered the look on Bucky's face when he was telling Tony about Steve Rogers. Tony wondered if Bucky's memories of the Commandos were like his memories of Steve Rogers, or if they were just other bad memories of the war.

Tony had to hold back a sigh of relief when Bucky grinned. “I supposed they did, didn't they?”

“Good memories, then?” Tony pressed.

“You kidding me? They were some of the best! I mean... The war was hell, sure, but... The Howling Commandos were different. I didn't have those guys when I first enlisted, you know? I left Steve back in the U.S., I didn't know Dum-Dum, or Falsworth, or Gabe... It was just regular me with the regular guys in the unit fighting a regular war. And it was hard. We didn't know what we were doing half the time. We didn't know who we were fighting, or what we were fighting for. I mean... some of those German soldiers were just kids. Way younger than us, smaller than Steve... fighting in forests and streams... not exactly key positions, you know? Then I was captured by Zola, and that was a whole other kind of hell... but after we got out? After Steve came for us? We were suddenly a special unit. We were running real missions every other week, and we could actually see the difference we were making, you know? Every downed Hydra facility was another red tack we could pull off the map. And yeah, the guys were great. We were all just a bunch of misfits when we were soldiers, and when Steve picked us for his team, the higher-ups thought he was an idiot. But as the Howling Commandos, we just... worked. After fighting in the trenches, with guys I didn't always trust to have my back, working with the Howling Commandos was just... good.”

“So happy equals handsome, huh?” Tony asked with a grin. “That would certainly explain why I like your post workout/sex hair the most.”

“Are you saying that my post workout/sex hair looks the same as the way I wore my hair fifty years ago?”

“Not the same,” Tony corrected. “Similar. In the right light, at the right angle, you're a total hottie.”

“I'm calling bullshit,” Bucky said with a chuckle, and Tony delighted at the vibrations the laughter sent through his jaw where he was resting against Bucky's chest. “If you didn't like my hair long, you wouldn't play with it so much. Especially when we're having sex.”

“I don't play with your hair. I'm just very subtlety trying to pull it all out.”

“Keep it up and I _will_ cut it all off,” Bucky challenged.

Tony really _did_ like Bucky's long hair, but he didn't know if he liked it enough to put aside his pride and verbally admit that he'd only been teasing.

The whole conversation was forgotten, though, when Bucky shifted beneath Tony and then groaned. “Okay, we really need to go shower. If I lie here any longer, I'm going to be permanently stuck to this mat.”

And, yeah, sweat wasn't so sexy after they'd both had a chance to cool down, so Tony rolled off of Bucky and got to his feet, saying, “Wanna go for round two while we get clean?”

“Only if you can keep your hands away from my hair.”

“No deal,” Tony replied as he followed Bucky out of the gym.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transition chapter equals incredibly difficult to write. I apologize for the ridiculous amount of time it took for me to finally post this. More to come soon!


	6. Reactivate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Bucky have been living together for years, but nothing like this has happened before.

Tony took some sort of perverse pleasure in finding the most well educated, well trained, highly experienced people in whatever field of study they specialized in, and hiring them to do the most menial of tasks.

Thus, Virginia Pepper Potts was added to the Stark Industries payroll. Virginia was a Yale girl, with degrees in Business Finance and Multimedia, and a minor in Humanities. Oh, and look, she was taking classes on International Law! Plus, she was a looker. Tony had always had a thing for redheads. And sure, he had himself a fine, fine man to share his bed with at night, but even Bucky couldn't begrudge Tony a bit of eye candy at work.

"I'm sorry Mr. Stark," Miss Potts said with an incredulous stare. "I'm afraid I don't understand the purpose of this meeting. Do you usually screen accounting intern applicants personally?"

"The position's already been filled," Tony told her with a dismissive wave. "I'm talking about giving you a real job. Salaried pay, an epic health care package, paid vacation, the works."

"In accounting?" she asked hopefully.

"No. As my Personal Assistant."

"Your... Personal Assistant. I have two degrees, I'm working on a third, and you want me to keep your schedule for you?"

"Keep my schedule, field calls... I might ask you attend appointments on my behalf, take notes of presentations, you know, things like that."

Tony watched her puzzle over his words. As he suspected, she was a quick study, and she soon asked, "What kind of appointments and presentations?"

"Well, for example, there's a technical conference in Switzerland I've been invited to attend, but there's an SI investor's meeting that same weekend."

"You want me to attend an investor's meeting for you."

"Sure. Obie and the Board Members will do all the talking. You just need to record the bullet points for me."

Slowly, Virginia sighed. "I mean... I could..."

"You could work for me for two, three years," Tony supplied. "With your salary, you wouldn't have to worry about student loans any more. And the experience you gain at SI will get you whatever job you want, anywhere. Literally, whatever job you want, anywhere you want."

Tony was clearly bribing the woman, and Miss Potts knew it. However, Tony didn't pull his punches when it came to getting something he wanted, and he wanted Virginia Potts doing his leg work. And if she were to turn down this job offer, then she wasn't as career minded or ambitious as she wanted people to think.

Miss Potts gave another long sigh. Then, with a definitive nod, she said, "I look forward to working with you, Mr. Stark."

And they shook on it.

* * *

The weapons industry was a male dominated field of business. Or as Tony liked to say, the weapons industry was a giant sausage fest, where the men of the business world and the men of the U.S. Army liked to get together and measure their dicks and engage in pissing contests.

There were women in the offices, of course. In accounting, Human Resources, in the law offices, hey, there were even women in the research departments! But when Miss Potts left the office and went with Tony to a Board of Directors Meeting, she was the only woman in the room for three hours.

No one paid much attention to Virginia Potts, the female personal assistant of Tony Stark, and if they did, they were usually only paying attention to the way her legs looked in the pencil skirts she seemed to favor. This infuriated Miss Potts, of course, but Tony was ecstatic.

"I'm serious, Stark," she raged as Bucky drove them back to the office after the meeting was finished. "It was insulting, the way they just looked over and past me!"

"Yeah, it's horrible," Tony muttered as he flipped through the reports which had been passed around during the meeting. The reports were clean, not so much as a misplaced decimal in the numbers. So Stane was getting help with the books. Tony already knew that Stane wasn't the only person in the company who was in on the dirty dealing, but Tony now wondered just how many people were involved in this mess-

"-and you don't even care! Stark, you promised me I'd be getting real, legitimate business experience while I was working here, but I get the feeling that the only experience I'll receive is in regards to harassment law suits!"

"Good Science, stop yelling!" Tony snapped at his assistant. "I'm trying to think here!"

Which was a bad idea, because Potts' eyes became cold and sharp and her lips pursed into a hard thin line. "You listen to me, Tony Stark. I will not abide being treated as if I am less than equal. I have worked hard for my education and experience, and the fact that I'm a woman doesn't mean that I can't do just as well if not better than my male counterparts, and if you aren't going to give me the respect and support I deserve-"

"I know!" Tony snapped back. "I get it! You think they treat me any better? Please, I'm just a kid to them. Look, Potts, you said you wanted experience, right? Well here it is. Welcome to the business world, where everyone is older than you, everyone thinks they know more than you, and everyone is a man. But you have one distinct advantage that they don't know about."

"And what advantage is that?" she asked with narrowed eyes.

"You're a woman. You're a woman who is just my secretary. When those old farts see you coming, they'll be too stupid to get out of your way. Look, you just have to attend meetings and take notes. They think I'm just a kid, but they know that I'm smart, so they don't talk in front of me."

"Oh my God. Do you want me to spy on people for you?" Potts asked, incredulous.

"No. I want you to sit in on the meetings that I can't make it to and take notes. If you happen to overhear any underhanded comments or witness anybody shaking hands with shady figures, well, that's not spying. That's gossip. And if it's gossip that can get some old, sexist, crooked businessmen out of our house, well then that's the best kind of gossip, isn't it?"

Virginia Potts sighed and muttered, "I did not sign up for this," but she didn't threaten to quit that day.

* * *

"She's good," Bucky stated.

"Who's good?" Tony absently asked as he sketched out some schematics for a new interface system he'd gotten the idea for while attending his technical conference.

"Potts," Bucky told him. Bucky was going through the mail which had piled up while they were at the conference, and one of the manila packets which had been delivered to the house was from Virginia Potts. "She only attended two major SI meetings while we were out of the country, and she's caught on."

"Excuse me, what?" Tony asked, looking up from his work.

"Potts watched and listened, like you told her to, and she's already figured out that Stane is dirty dealing under the table – she's already begun to compile a list of names. And a few of the names she found for us weren't on our list."

"Good job, Potts!" Tony crowed, standing up and moving to check out the papers which Bucky was shuffling through. "I knew hiring her was a good idea! And look at this, she's even done research on the numbers that Stane is running! No wonder she was passed up for that position in accounting! She would have caught what was going on after just touching the books!"

Bucky rolled his eyes at Tony's excited chatter. "Cool your jets, Stark. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done-"

"Bucky, are you jealous right now?" Tony asked gleefully. Because Bucky never called him Stark, and he never told Tony to cool your jets.

And Bucky blushed. Tony had never seen Bucky blush before. "I am not jealous-"

"Liar!" Tony crowed. "You are totally jealous! You don't like my new red-headed assistant!"

"Of course I don't! I see the way you look at her legs-"

"Don't act like you don't look at them, too! It's hard not to, with those heals she wears!"

"And you're always going on about how brilliant she is-"

"I'm attracted to intelligence, Bucky. You know that! And competence turns me on. It's half the reason I get all hot and bothered for you when I watch you practice your knife throwing. It's not the knives that do it for me, Buck. I'm not going to dump you for my assistant, though, no matter how many law degrees she gets. You're my favorite."

And that statement was met with silence, because it was the closest either of them had ever gotten to saying they loved each other.

For a few moments, Bucky simply stared at Tony, his eyes narrowed as he studied Tony's expression. Then, quietly, he said, "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Tony confirmed for him. "You're my favorite."

"You're my favorite, too," Bucky replied. Then, giving Tony a teasing grin, he said, "Although JARVIS is one or two upgrades away from stealing your spot."

Laughing, Tony said, "I could say the same for you! It's not Potts you need to be worrying about, Bucky!"

And JARVIS, that beautiful learning algorithm, said, "Thank you for your regards, sirs."

"He's too polite to say as much, but I'm _his_ favorite," Tony declared.

Which got them going on a whole different tangent.

* * *

Potts, or Pepper, as Tony had taken to calling her, found out about Bucky by accident.

Tony had just installed Bucky's new metal arm, and although it was twice as dexterous and three times stronger than the arm Hydra had given him, there were still some adjustments and bugs which needed to be worked out.

Pepper walked into Tony's office when Bucky had his shirt off and the new metal arm was on full display (literally, the arm had been removed at the elbow, and there were panels open and everything).

"Oh, my..." The woman's eyes widened when she saw Bucky and his disconnected arm. "What is... Are you okay? What is that? I'm – I'm getting a doctor-"

"Of, for the love of – get in here and close the door!" Tony demanded before Potts could retreat into the hall or make a grab for a phone. "My office is secure, but the rest of the building isn't! Come on, Potts!"

When Tony snapped at her, she hurried to step into the office and close the door behind her.

To Bucky, Tony said, "Sorry, Buck. I guess I forgot to lock the door."

"I told you we should wait to do this until we got home," Bucky grouched.

"What is going on?!" Pepper gasped. "James, what happened to your arm?"

"Battle wound," Bucky said shortly, eyeing Pepper as she stared in fascination as Tony made some adjustments to Bucky's metal hand.

"Are you... Are you sure you don't need a doctor? Your shoulder looks really bad."

"The installation of his new arm was recent. The inflammation was expected, but his shoulder isn't infected," Tony explained.

At Tony's reassurance, the woman wandered a little further into the office, her eyes finally leaving the red, puffy skin of Bucky's shoulder and inspecting the mechanism which was attached to him. "Tony, did you build that? It's... amazing... With something like that, you could revolutionize prosthetics..."

"Nope," Tony replied. "No way. This isn't... Alright, have a seat, Pepper. This is... kind of a long story. But let me tell you now, prosthesis like this _are not_ going to become a thing."

That day, Pepper _did_ threaten to quit. Corporate intrigue was one thing, but murderous business partners and brainwashing and assassins and evil organizations from comic books were something else entirely.

Tony talked her off the ledge, but only barely. He had to agree to get her a body guard of her own (who would be disguised as her driver) and a vacation house (technically a safe house) in the Bahamas.

"Fine," she finally agreed. "But only because the two of you would probably get yourselves killed if you tried to do this by yourselves.

* * *

It was a Thursday, and Tony's day had been very, very productive. He'd created a new poly-fiber to use for a lightweight armor, he'd done some tweaking on Bucky's new arm, and Rhodey had landed him a fun project with the Air Force (involving defensive equipment, as opposed to the hard-hitting offensive shit Stane had been pressuring him to create). Plus, he and Bucky had managed in a quickie during lunch. So yeah, good day.

Then, as the pair were leaving the offices and walking to their car, Tony was kidnapped.

When the van jumped the curb and started barreling down the sidewalk towards them, towards Bucky, something strange happened. He'd been training, sure. He'd kept in shape over the past few years. He'd even done some sparing with Tony. But he'd never really been attacked. Not when his body wasn't under the effect of a neurotoxin. Not in the way he was used to being attacked when he was the Winter Soldier.

But as that van fixed to smash into him at full speed, something clicked, something that hadn't been active in years, since he'd been rescued by Tony.

Once that old part clicked into place, it was no problem for the Winter Soldier to leap out of the van's path.

Threat established, the Soldier quickly and efficiently disabled said threat, throwing several knives at the vehicle's tires, and then capturing the two men sitting in the front seat.

The driver struggled, so the Soldier snapped his neck. The passenger didn't, so after binding the man with one of the ineffectual plastic zip-ties kept inside his jacket (and really, the zip tie may have been standard equipment for SI security, but he should start carrying around some proper restraints), the Soldier turned to his commander to ask if he wanted the second man alive for questioning.

Except, his commander wasn't there.

The attack hadn't been meant for the Soldier. It had been meant to distract him, damnit. His commander was the real target. While he'd been dealing with the direct attack against himself, his commander had been picked up by two men, carried to the curb, and as the soldier watched, he was forcefully pushed into the back of a second van.

And fuck. He and the commander had never actually trained. Not on form or efficiency or how to escape from a hold. They just engaged in an hour or so of foreplay. And watching him struggle against his captors, it was obvious. There was plenty of strength behind his flailing limbs, and when his elbows or knees made contact, he set his attackers off balance. But he didn't set them off balance long enough to make any difference, and he didn't land hits often enough to cause lasting damage.

In an instant, the van was moving, and the Winter Soldier was giving chase.

It was 4:00 on a Thursday. The idiots decided to kidnap Tony Stark during rush hour. That didn't exactly make for an easy getaway. The Soldier didn't even have to steal a car to keep up with the van, and their path wasn't difficult to predict. Fucking amateurs.

In his ear, there was a burst of static, and then a man said, "Baring! Report!"

It took him a moment to remember that Baring was the alias he'd been given by the commander, and another to remember why he would report to anyone other than Stark. He wasn't Hydra anymore. He didn't have to report to anyone, except for his commander.

Then, he remembered that the radio in his ear connected him to SI's security, and seriously, was that lot just now responding to the attack? The soldier and the van he was pursuing were already four blocks away from SI headquarters.

But the Soldier dutifully reported, "Two men pulled Stark into a white van, no license plate, headed northeast on Ocean towards I10."

"Dispatch has been notified."

The police? No. They would just fuck this up.

So the Soldier had to make this quick.

His opportunity to act came when the van began to swerve. Not around cars and between lanes, like it had been, but it briefly bounced onto the curb, then veered into the southbound lane, into oncoming traffic. The van slowed down enough for the Soldier to catch up, and then it was as easy as using his metal arm to rip the door off the back of the van and jump inside.

The soldier was pleased by what he saw inside the van. One man was unconscious, another was bleeding from a head wound and clearly disoriented, and the commander was grappling with a third man, Stark's back to the front of the van while the driver was distractedly reaching back and uselessly grabbing at him.

Quickly, efficiently, he incapacitated the two still conscious (or semi-conscious, as it may be) men in the back, then made his way to the front of the van, where he reached over the driver, opened the door, and pushed him out of the van and into traffic (always wear a seat-belt, unless trained in escaping vehicles moving at high speeds) and then slid into the driver's seat and brought the vehicle to a stop.

It took another five minutes and fifteen seconds for the police to catch up.

"Where are you hurt?" the Soldier asked, quickly inspecting Stark's head and neck while they waited for the cops to show up.

"I'm not – It's mostly just bumps and bruises. They stuck me with a needle, though. I don't know what..."

The Soldier quickly reentered the van and inspected the various supplies which had been thrown to the floor during the commander's struggles. Sure enough, there was a discarded syringe on the van's floor, and a second which had been prepped for use. The Soldier found a vial half full of liquid which had rolled under the front passenger side seat, two pinpricks visible in the top. Inspecting the label, the Soldier scoffed. "Mild sedative. Meant to calm, rather than render unconscious. Do you feel light headed? Dizzy?"

"No," the commander answered. "Bucky, are you okay?"

"Subject has no injuries. However, I'm not preforming at peak efficiency. Mistakes were made."

"Shit. Bucky, no, you saved me. They could have killed me. But why are you-"

"Their objective wasn't to kill you," the Soldier reported. "Only to take you. At worst, they wanted your intelligence for a project. I don't believe that is the case, however. While organized, this operation displays a lack of training and intelligence. Combined with their intent to inject you with a sedative, it is my opinion that these men intended to kidnap you and hold you for purposes of extortion."

"Bucky," Stark suddenly hissed. "The cops are almost here!"

Sure enough, the Soldier could hear approaching sirens. He didn't understand why this upset the commander, unless the officers were a threat.

Before the Soldier could move into a defensive position, however, Stark hissed, "Do not, and I mean do not speak Russian in front of them! English, Bucky!"

Right. Because James Baring, personal body guard to Tony Stark, wasn't Russian and had never been to Russia, and therefore he shouldn't speak Russian.

The Soldier blinked, thinking. But no, he'd spoken English over the radios, when he'd been reporting to SI's security regarding the situation. He'd only spoken Russian to the commander so far.

"Understood, sir."

"Christ. Bucky, hide the needles, hide the sedative. They can not know that I was drugged. Give your report to the police, I'll consent to being checked over by EMTs on site, but we can't go to the hospital. Not unless you snap out of it."

The Winter Soldier thought about that. Adrenalin was rushing through his veins, he was tense, and he was hyper aware of his surroundings, his eyes already tracking the police officers who were now rushing towards them on foot, their weapons drawn. Whatever snapping out of it entailed, the Soldier knew that it wouldn't be happening anytime soon.

So again, he said, "Understood, sir," just before the officers entered hearing range.

The sedative really kicked in half way through the EMT's examination, but Stark was able to play it off as the aftereffects of his adrenaline rush. Stark gave a quick report to the police, stating that after he'd been grabbed and pulled into the van, the attackers hadn't subdued him appropriately, and he was able to fight back and eventually distract the driver, at which point "Baring" showed up and "finished the job." The back door of the van, which had been ripped off via the Soldier's metal arm, was attributed to Tony's attempt to exit the van and the driver's distracted driving (luckily, the woman driving the car which had been damaged by the flying door corroborated with this story, because she didn't actually see the soldier rip the door off of the van. She had been fairly distracted by the van's reckless movements, so one moment she'd been swerving away from the van as it cut into the lane she was driving in, and the next she was slamming the breaks full stop because there was a door smashing into her windshield.

The Soldier gave the police an equally quick, although much more detailed report of events, then he brusquely informed the men that he would be escorting Mr. Stark home, and if they needed further details, they could contact him at a latter date.

After the EMTs concluded that yes, Mr. Stark only had a few scrapes and bruises, they quickly moved to provide care to Mr. Stark's attackers. Namely, the man who had been pushed out of the moving vehicle. The Soldier knew they shouldn't bother. He wasn't going to make it, and the EMTs were wasting good supplies on him.

An officer drove them back to SI, where the Soldier quickly ushered Mr. Stark to their car, and then he began driving the commander home.

As they made their way out of the city and onto the highway, the sedative took full effect, and Mr. Stark became drowsy. His limbs went slack, his breathing slowed, and his head began to roll around on his neck. The Soldier reached over and moved the seat into a reclined position. The commander didn't fall asleep, however.

"Bucky," Stark sighed. "What the hell happened? Why are you... Has your programming reasserted itself?"

"Yes," he stated. "When the attack began and the subject's adrenaline spiked. Normal levels of functionality were unsuitable for handling the situation. I determined that the Winter Soldier was required to complete the objective."

"Alright. Well, good job, Soldier. Objective completed. Can I have Bucky back, now?"

"No. The objective has not been completed. You have been drugged, you are in a weakened state, and you are not safe."

"Are you kidding me? You took out the baddies, Soldier. The attack's over."

"We don't know that," the Soldier argued. "That may have been a preliminary attack, a distraction."

"Um, what?"

"The first wave of attack was a distraction," the Soldier explained. "I was distracted by the first two men,while the other four were grabbing you."

"And you think that whole thing was a distraction for an even bigger end game?" Stark asked.

The Soldier could hear the disbelief and doubt in the commander's words. And he agreed. The attack had been downright sloppy. Their enemy's intentions had been clear from the beginning, and their entire operation had been a mess. And no one except for a few knew that James Baring was the Winter Soldier. Those attackers hadn't known what they were fighting against, and they hadn't been prepared. Now, the danger was passed. Logically, he knew that. But he didn't feel safe. And he didn't feel that the commander was safe, either.

So no, the objective hadn't been completed.

"You are not yet safe," he announced. "At the house, I will initiate a full lock down and you will be given a complete comprehensive examination, and you will be given time to recover from the sedative you were injected with. The situation will be reevaluated after you have been returned to full health."

Despite the Soldier's declaration, the moment he and Stark stepped foot into their home, the Winter Soldier's programming melted away like a sigh, quite and smooth, and only Bucky was left to care for Tony.

"Holy fuck," Bucky muttered as he stumbled, almost loosing the grip he had on Tony's waist. Quickly, he steered Tony to the living room and lowered him onto the couch, then collapsed onto the cushions next to him.

"Bucky? You back with me?" Tony muttered.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm..."

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I mean... holy fuck," he said again. "That was intense."

"Yeah? But it wasn't... It wasn't the full on Winter Soldier, was it?"

"Yes. No. I mean, it wasn't the same as Hydra's programming. I was still there. But... My training took over. My combat training. Fuck. It was like an out of body experience. Tony, I... I shut down parts of my mind."

"But you were still you?"

"I... maybe. Damn, why hasn't this happened before? Why didn't this happen when Stane attacked?"

"Neurotoxin," Tony said plainly. "You were lucky to function at all while it was in your system."

And with that, Tony was finished with the conversation. He slid sideways on the couch so that his head was pillowed against Bucky's chest, and he sighed. "Nap time, now. We'll figure out what to do about this post sleep."

Except... Bucky wasn't sure that he wanted to do anything about it. With Tony in his arms as he slept off the sedative with nothing more than a few scrapes as evidence for the encounter, Bucky thought of how things would have gone if the Winter Soldier hadn't taken control of the situation.

He would have been hit by the first van, the distraction. Those guys hadn't been professionals, not really, but they had come prepared to grab Tony and take out his bodyguard. The van wouldn't have killed him, not with the upgrades Hydra had given his body, but he would have been slowed down. He wouldn't have had time to subdue the men in the first van before realizing that someone was taking Tony, and then he would have been running after Tony while defending his back.

Tony had been fighting against the four men who had grabbed him, but Bucky wouldn't have been there just as he was distracting the driver, making him swerve and slow down. And then the sedative would have really kicked in, and they would have been on the highway.

And after? When he was giving his report to the police? That wouldn't have gone as smoothly, or as quickly. The EMTs would have realized that there was something wrong with Tony beyond mild shock, and he would have been taken to the hospital, where the public could gain easy access – Lord, SI would have had to send extra security to protect Tony from the media's attempts to enter his room –

It would have been a mess. If the Winter Soldier hadn't taken care of the situation, they wouldn't be resting peacefully at home right now. They'd probably still be engaged in a high speed chase on the highways.

Gently, Bucky pulled Tony further into his chest, and he laid down on the couch.

Stark, he remembered. The Soldier had removed any indications of personal attachment or feelings for Tony from his thoughts during the fight. But he'd also thought of Tony as his commander. He hadn't thought of anyone as his commander in years. Decades. Hydra had tried instituting a commander for the Winter Soldier, early on in the training, where protecting the commander was the soldier's first priority. Except that this particular program had been run early on in the program, before Bucky was gone and only the Soldier remained. The Winter Soldier had never really accepted anyone as his commander, and when he'd been assigned to someone, he'd eventually let them die, in one way or another. Then, even after his programming had been established, Hydra had determined that he still couldn't act as a bodyguard to the higher-ups, because the risk of him breaking his programming and letting someone get to his commander was too great.

When the Winter Soldier recognized Tony as his commander, it was as if the Soldier was acknowledging Bucky's feelings for Tony. The Winter Soldier recognized that protecting Tony was their main objective.

And if the Winter Soldier could protect Tony better than Bucky Barnes, then who was he to argue with allowing the Soldier to take over every now and again?


End file.
